MEMORY
by Tatooine92
Summary: In this sequel to Fett'ad, Rogue's adventures continue. I OWN NOTHING except Rogue.
1. Introduction

Wow, a new Rogue story! A sequel, so soon! I'm using this author's note moment to give a big THANK YOU to my buddy Jax for writing up TH-636's datapad entries for me. Love!

**Introduction**

_[[Datapad of Imperial Captain Brogan. Nine entries._

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_[Entry One Begins._

_The Emperor has decided on a new plan of attack against the Rebels. During the Clone Wars, the Grand Army of the Republic produced many top-quality commanders, and we need commanders on all our fronts. The fools that come out of the officer training academies aren't worth the tax dollars spent to train them. So we have gone to the Kaminoan cloners and . . . requested genetic samples of some of the best commanders they created. They complied quite willingly; it was surprising. Apparently, someone higher up has quite the large pocketbook, for those cloners readily offered the use of their laboratories for the re-cloning processes. I keep thinking, why not? After all, those troopers came from there in the first place. But I also think that the Emperor himself might have sent Lord Vader to ensure that the facilities would be available. _

_I have been placed in charge of training the new commanders once we have some. For now, they are planning to create one re-clone as something of an experiment, though I am unsure as to which sample will be used. We were given several dozen._

_[Entry One Ends._

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_[Entry Two Begins._

_Test subject has been chosen. The Empire's first re-clone is to be of a commander by the designation of Theta-636. This clone's records from the Wars have been carefully studied; he had the makings of an excellent commander but was killed in action several years ago. How interesting it should be to "resurrect" him. _

_[Entry Two Ends._

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_[Entry Three Begins._

_Re-cloning process initiated. If this works, we will use it as a method of bolstering out troops using the fine material produced so many years ago. Our test subject, to be re-designated TH-636 (no use for long prefixes anymore), will be a relatively unaltered being. We do intend to use something of a growth acceleration during the artificial gestation period and the growth years to make him approximately twenty-eight in a matter of months. It is an outside acceleration, meaning the subject will spend weeks in a chemical tank so we do not have to deal with the messy process of tampering with his genetic makeup. I fail to understand how the Kaminoans created such an army by using such brutal methods. Perhaps they thought it would not matter, for their soldiers would die on the front lines so quickly that they would never know. Well, such is not the case with the Empire. _We_ do not abuse our troops so. _

_[Entry Three Ends._

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_[Entry Four Begins._

_Several weeks have passed since the process was begun. All is going according to plan. Six-Three-Six is developing quite quickly. Should be only a few more weeks before he is "born" and we may begin the growing. In this day and age, we have no time to wait for children to mature. But he will not be harmed. His growth will only be accelerated as long as he is within the chemical tank. Afterwards, he will continue to age at a normal pace. After all, we cannot afford to create such an excellent commander only to have him die by an artificially shortened life. If he is as good as we are hoping, he will serve his Emperor until he dies, whether it be naturally or by a blaster shot from those cursed Rebels. Otherwise, he will have to be terminated, and we will try it all again._

_[Entry Four Ends._

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_[Entry Five Begins._

_All is going well. TH-636, having spent approximately two months in the tank, now looks like a young boy perhaps of thirteen or so. It really does amaze me to see how quickly the process takes place. _

_I don't think there shall be any more updates here until he is released from the tank as a full-grown man._

_[Entry Five Ends._

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_[Entry Six Begins._

_Grand day in the Imperial forces. Our first re-clone, TH-636, took his first steps outside the chemical tank. He is having no problems nor suffering any adverse effects. Despite never before setting foot on solid ground, he has adapted to walking quite rapidly. We all have high hopes for him, for it appears that he has some knowledge of the military. I had been expecting a clean slate, as it were. That is what surprises me, I believe. He appears in every way to have the same knowledge as the original's records claim he had. _

_Unusual that a mere re-clone should possess the same knowledge as his original, is it not? Something must not have gone right in the process._

_[Entry Six Ends._

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_[Entry Seven Begins._

_It is as it seems. TH-636 requires very little military training; it is if we truly have resurrected the original. I am now quite certain that something went amiss during the re-cloning process, but no one seems willing to believe me. I have trouble understanding that such things could happen when duplicating mere genetic material that was so incredibly similar to millions of other samples. But we _had_ received DNA samples that were from a time when Theta-636 was undergoing his training. Perhaps something in those training courses somehow altered his genes to make him a true soldier. We shall see. The training that he does need commences tonight._

_[Entry Seven Ends._

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_[Entry Eight Begins._

_There is great talk in the department over TH-636's progress. He has very quickly adapted to Imperial procedures, but he seems hesitant to do as the other Stormtroopers do. Rumors are floating around that he is scheduled for termination because something went so drastically wrong in the process. I cannot help but wonder if it was the chemically-enhanced accelerated growth. Nonetheless, I still feel as though he is a talented soldier and has great potential for being a top-notch commander. He just needs to be better trained in the Imperial ways. I wonder if a stint at Lusankya would serve him—and us—well . . ._

_[Entry Eight Ends._

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_[Entry Nine Begins._

_TH-636 is to be sent to Lusankya, but not as a prisoner. I managed to convince the ones in charge that he just needed some time to be prepared as a loyal officer. It wasn't easy, that was for sure; Madam Director Isard is always so anxious for new "prey" for her stronghold. She surely must be mentally deranged._

_Six-Three-Six begins guard duty in the prison cells of Lusankya tonight. There is a new prisoner down there; she is considered to be top priority by Lord Vader and is scheduled for full reconditioning as soon as she recovers from a bitter blaster wound. We shall see how good a guard our little experiment will make. If he can keep her from escaping (which is impossible anyway) and manages to restrain his feelings of reluctance toward the Imperial way of doing things, we may send him on to higher training yet. _

_We have also given him entrance to the cell and access to the hall cameras outside. It is something of another experiment, for he has been given permission to do as he likes with the prisoner. After all, he _is_ a male, and males have . . . urges, do they not? Ha ha._

_This may be very interesting. If he fails in any way, however, when the little prisoner is taken to the treatment chambers, so will he._

_[Entry Nine Ends._

* * *

_[[Datapad of TH-636. Four entries._

_[Entry One Begins._

_I don't know why they gave me this. Maybe they want to do a psych-evaluation on me and see what I put in. Or maybe it's because it can stave off boredom. I should at least start with some introductions._

_My designation is TH-636. I'm a Stormtrooper of the Galactic Empire, and you know what? I don't need training. It's as if I knew everything I needed to know and then some once I came out of my . . . pod, tube, whatever. Odd, I know. I know how to command a battalion of soldiers, I can dismantle and reassemble a blaster rifle, and I know some basic hand-to-hand combat and some basic computer slicing techniques. The only thing I seem to need to get the hang of are the regs. Like I really care if I can command._

_But it's strange. I'm one of me, but I still get stares. Captain Brogan says not to worry, but I don't fully buy it._

_Something else strange: I've never been to the surface. I've only ever been in the training facility or my barracks. I've never seen a sun . . . or stars . . . or sky, for that matter. Everyone has seen the stars, seen other places. But I haven't . . ._

_[Entry One Ends._

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_[Entry Two Begins._

_Today I was in the mess, just thinking to myself. I sit alone at my table; guess I'm not 'one of the guys' yet. I dunno. But I was sitting, just thinking, and, suddenly, a female officer-in-training came up to me. She asked me who I was, and when I told her my sig, she actually _sat down_. She had heard about me from Captain Brogan, and she asked why I was so . . . _different_. I wanted to ask her what she meant. I just shrugged._

_Eventually, she asked me if I wanted to go with her topside a few days soon, have dinner and go to a show. I wanted to say yes. But something in my mind told me that I shouldn't, that there was only one person I would _ever_ say 'yes' to on such an occasion. I reluctantly declined._

_She just got up and never came back. Now I'm still thinking._

_[Entry Two Ends._

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_[Entry Three Begins._

_There's been talk about the latest 'treat' for Director of Intelligence Ysanne Isard: five former Republic Commandos who've been on the run ever since the Empire rose. They say that one's a female Jedi, but still others say that she was an ex-ARC who fell in with the commandos. They're going through . . . reconditioning right now._

_I hate that word. I feel scared every time I think of myself on one of those tables, but it's fear for someone else that worries me. I have no idea who else I should be afraid for . . . _

_(Thirty minutes later)_

_Two of them escaped! They broke Isard's reconditioning and broke out! _

_I'm glad, because no one, not even someone bred for war and doomed to it, should be forced to swear allegiance to any side. And, rereading this sentence, I think I pulled that out of thin air . . ._

_[Entry Three Ends._

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_[Entry Four Begins._

_I've been reassigned. Captain Brogan is sending me . . . there. Lusankya. He assured me it wasn't for . . . treatment; guard duty instead. Seems that one of Vader's retained bounty hunters didn't want to kill her quarry, so Boba Fett brought her in. She's been wounded, badly, so she won't be 'done' . . . yet._

_Brogan's also allowed me access to the cameras and her door. The knowing look he gave me . . . I'm not _that_ kind of person. I do have my own scruples, thanks. But whether this assignment's going to be a blessing or catastrophe, well . . . we'll have to see._

_[Entry Four Ends._


	2. Guard Duty

**Chapter One – Guard Duty**

TH-636 walked quietly through the darkened halls of the terrible prison called Lusankya. He cringed not only at the darkness but also at his deep-rooted fear of winding up in one of those "treatment chambers." _Torture_ chambers would have been more fitting; that seemed like the most common use for them, anyway. He just hoped he never ended up there as he passed by the long row of them. One of them was in use, and he winced again, crossing quickly to the other side of the hall in the direction of his post. Guard duty wasn't the grandest assignment, but he didn't particularly mind. The identity of the prisoner he was to guard had made him curious; he wanted to know who she was. He'd only gotten a glimpse of her as they'd dragged her in as an unconscious heap, but he'd seen enough to know that she wore armor that struck a chord within him. That had been happening a lot lately. He'd think of things that seemed so familiar and yet so . . . not. He felt as if he should've recognized her, but his mind was so foggy. It was as if he'd been through one of those awful Lusankya treatments and didn't know it. He shuddered as he descended a long flight of narrow steps into the darkest part of the prison: the cell block. Though he'd never been down there before, he decided immediately that he did _not_ want to stay there long. It gave him chill bumps all across his skin beneath his armor.

Six-Three-Six looked down at the tiny datapad he clutched in his hand. He was almost at the new prisoner's cell. He wondered if she was still unconscious. Though he didn't understand why, he hoped she was. One of the technicians in the hall earlier that day had mentioned they wouldn't start on erasing her memory until after she was healed. Six-Thee-Six found himself wanting her to stay out cold as long as possible so they wouldn't have to hurt her. But why did he feel that way? It was an unexplainable tugging in the back of his mind that he never did understand. That feeling accompanied a lot of things, especially when he discovered something he just _knew_—meaning it was something he'd not been trained to do but somehow just understood how to do it. He stole another glance at the 'pad. _Her_ cell would be just around the corner, then three doors down . . . He arrived there in a few seconds and immediately peered into the pitch-black cell through the tiny window in the heavy steel door. She was still out. That meant they wouldn't take her and . . . recondition her. He shuddered again; how he despised that word. Something in the deepest corner of his mind prodded at him and gave him the feeling that he'd once been terrified of that. Once? How long ago was that? He only remembered the past few months; had he been around before that? _Had_ he already been _reconditioned_ once before?

Quietly, resignedly, he took his place outside the door, rifle at his hip in case something should go wrong. He looked up slightly and saw the camera focused on him and the cell and thought to the control panel just around the corner. Part of him wanted to just turn the thing off because he did _not_ enjoy the feeling of being watched. He knew someone was on the other side keeping an eye on the monitors; there always was. And he couldn't help but wonder why they'd given him the entrance code to the cell's lock? Why ever would he need to go in there? Come to think of it, the captain _had_ had something of a sneaky expression on his face when he mentioned it. What, were they hoping that he would get the idea in his head of _hurting_ that girl? Six-Three-Six found himself suddenly appalled. That girl had looked familiar; like he would bring her harm! There was that strange feeling again, as if he _needed_ to protect her. And there was only one way he could do that: by making sure she was still unconscious.

He turned and peered into the cell again. He could barely make out the dark mound that was she and her armor in the blackness. He blinked once, eyes adjusting to the lack of light as he pursed his lips.

_I don't know who you are or where you came from,_ he thought, _but just stay like you are. They won't take you if you're not awake and healed up._

The mound stirred faintly, and he quickly turned away, back toward the camera, eyes steadily gazing forward. His guard duty had begun.


	3. Wide Awake

**Chapter Two – Wide Awake**

_I'm alive. Sweet Force, I'm alive._

Those were the first words that popped into my head as I cracked an eye open and looked around. You remember me, right? Rogue Fett? As in, the girl who got kidnapped by her own brother? But that's not really important. What _was_ important was that _I_ remembered me. It meant I hadn't been sent through that awful brainwashing yet. And I knew I was alive because my side was still hurting quite badly. Dead people didn't feel pain . . . Ooh, I felt like jumping up and dancing for joy, but that bubble burst as soon as I got a good look at my surroundings. Pitch black and cold, I _knew_ it had to be a prison cell. I shuddered at the chilly dampness as I reached out my hands to get a feel of how big my cell was. It wasn't too large; maybe six-by-six or a bit bigger. The walls were solid steel; so much for any chance of escaping. My hands went out in front of me; I could barely see, it was so dark. But I found the door; it, too, was solid steel. No chance of seeing out if my eyes could ever get adjusted. So I sat back down in my corner, and crossed my arms before pressing a hand to my side as I grimaced. I had a sudden thought that perhaps my guard (if I _was_ being guarded, that is) might be willing to talk. Or maybe there were other prisoners.

"Anybody down here but me, huh?" I called.

Several minutes went by in silence. Oh well. Guess I was on my own this time. All alone with no one to chat with . . . But who was I kidding? As if Imperial troops would speak to _me_, the lowly little prisoner in the cold, damp cell. Hah, lowly, my _shebs_. I had a bounty the size of Coruscant on my head and was about to get said head wiped in . . . who knew how long. Maybe only a few minutes. But after a while, believe it or not, there came an answer to my call: a dim voice, made faint by the door. But . . . it sounded so . . . familiar. As if I'd heard it before. It resonated in my ears, making my head swim somewhat.

"Well, you in _there_, me out here," said the voice . . . or whoever it was attached to.

I hadn't expected to, but I gave a start as my skin startled prickling. That voice was so familiar that it was frightening. I slowly stood, rubbing the hole in my armor.

"Yeah, okay, I'm in here," I sighed. "You're probably just guarding me . . . But why do you sound so darn familiar? And where am I?"

"You're in a cell on Lusankya," the voice answered. "As to why I sound familiar, I dunno."

Wait, wait, wait. _On_ Lusankya? Like . . . not _in_? What, you mean to tell me they keep their cells _outside_ the place? Or wait a minute . . . Folks normally use "on" in reference to ships. That didn't mean that . . . (Hey, guess what! It _did_. Surprise, surprise, and kudos to those who figured it out. Turns out that Lusankya was that devil woman Isard's personal Super Star Destroyer. Lovely, eh?) All right, anyway, my heart just about stopped beating. I knew where I was, but . . . it still scared me to hear that name. I knew I hadn't been brainwashed, so I didn't worry about that. I worried about how long I'd have before they came to get me! _And_ I was suddenly wondering why the voice outside the cell door sounded so familiar. I leaned up next to the door and peered out through the tiny window to see one lone trooper standing there.

"Now for another question," I said. "You wouldn't happen to know how long I've been here, hmm?"

There was a moment's pause before my guard spoke.

"Only a couple hours," he said. "I think they're waiting for you to be fully recovered before they recondition you."

I noticed that his voice faltered over the word _recondition_. Chev had been like that once upon a time . . . He had been scared half to death of it. (Bad figure of speech for the occasion, I know.) Just thinking about it made me feel a bit sad, and I sighed. Oh well, if they were waiting for me to recover, why could I not go with my original plan and—I dunno—feign that my injury was mortal? Maybe then they'd not hurt me at all.

"Then maybe I should stay down and fake injury so they won't haul me off," I said. "Heh. Like that'd work, though . . . They'd just get impatient and do it anyway."

I paused as I looked out the tiny window at my guard.

"Something wrong?" I asked. "That sounded like that made you nervous. I knew somebody who was afraid of getting reconditioned . . ." I sighed. "But he's . . . gone now."

"I'm sorry," the guard replied. "I'm slightly afraid, because if I get caught telling you this . . . And also . . . it's like there's this ghost of a memory . . . but I can't pull it out; I dunno if it's mine or not . . ."

I heard him sigh heavily, and I pursed my lips, feeling quite sorry for him. He was no better off than I was. In fact, maybe he was worse off. It sounded as if he was having some problems, though . . . and I needed someone to talk to—as did he, from the sounds of things . . . I lightly tapped on the door to get his attention and saw him straighten.

"Well, maybe if you'd talk about it for a minute, it'd come out," I suggested. He looked thoughtful. "Besides, who am I gonna tell about it in here, huh? I doubt they bothered to put a cam on me." 

"They did, but I can turn it off . . . they don't mind if it's for whatever they think I want to do if I come in . . . One second."

Ew. Don't tell me they—Gross. They actually gave him permission to . . . have his way with me? What kinds of perverts were running this Empire, anyway? Oh, _wait_. I sighed, wondering if he was about to take that permission out on me, but it didn't _sound_ like he was the sort . . . A light came on in the hallway outside my cell, and I retreated to my dark, quiet corner to wait for him to come back. There was a quiet pattering at the door as it swung open and my guard dashed inside. He muttered something about having some measure of privacy (Um . . .) as he hurried to shut the door before the light poured in and seared my retinas. But it was too late. My retinas weren't seared, but I'd seen his face, and I just about flipped out. _He was the exact image of Chevron._

Frightened, I gasped as I covered my mouth with both hands, shaking my head in disbelief. This wasn't possible! He'd been dead for almost eight years! No, something was wrong. I had to have been going insane. That was the only reasonable explanation. I stared hard at him as he turned toward me, fighting down a scream of shock as I saw that he carried himself _exactly_ as Chev had.

"Oh, my Force . . . No . . . I—it _can't_ be . . . ! I must be losing my mind!" I cried, curling up in my corner and burying my head in my hands. This was too much and too sudden to handle. "But . . . but you're _dead_!"

The trooper cocked his head at me, looking quite confused and a bit startled by my sudden outburst.

"Uh . . . Miss, of _course_ I ain't dead," he said. "Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation."

True enough, I suppose. But it was so frightening . . . I could've sworn it was my Chev come back to me. Or was I really dead and this was some sort of weird dream? I hadn't heard of the deceased ever having unusual dreams after they were gone, but . . . there's always a first for everything, as the old saying goes.

"Then I'm losing my mind," I moaned. "But I swear you look exactly like him . . . sound exactly like him . . ." I exhaled shakily, daring to look up into his strangely familiar face. "Chev . . . it just _can't_ be you . . . can it?"

The trooper's eyebrows furrowed, as if he was trying to process the name I'd just (mistakenly) called him. It was very likely that no one had ever called him _that_ before. Most folks probably just called him by whatever his numerical designation was.

"Uhhh . . . maybe you are," he said, agreeing with my idea that I was going mentally insane, "because I don't go by that name . . . but my number's TH-Six-Three-Six."

I nearly passed out into a cold faint. Chev's old number . . . the first two letters of _Theta_ . . . Oh, Force! I seriously felt as though I was just going to go irreversibly mad at any given moment. Hm . . . I'd never been insane before . . . I wondered to myself what it was like. But the shock from hearing his number was so overwhelming that I could barely breathe.

"No, no, that was _his_ number!" I protested. "Six-Three-Six _was_ him!" I took another look at him, biting my lip. "I could've sworn . . ."

My shoulders slumped as I realized it had been too good to be true. I looked away with a sigh as I started muttering to myself.

"But it isn't possible . . . He'd already been dead a few hours when I found him . . . And _I_ buried him . . . I _must_ be losing it."

Saddened by this realization, I groaned and more tightly curled up in my little corner, burying my face in my folded arms. I was about to begin crying, but I felt hands on my shoulders and looked up to realize the trooper was gently, cautiously, rubbing my back.

"Hey, it's okay," he said, continuing the soft rubbing. Force, even his _hands_ felt like Chev's. Talk about missing a guy a whole heck of a lot. Next thing I knew, I'd be having hallucinations. "I bet your vision just got a little iffy because of the light . . . It happens a lot, actually. That's why they keep it real dark down here in the cells."

I turned and squeezed his arm, wishing desperately that I could see in the darkness. Well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe my retinas _did_ get seared after all. I mean, let's face it. It was very dark, then very bright, then dark again. Oh, Force, now I was gonna be _blind_, too?! Well, _that_ would keep them from brainwashing me . . . I almost accepted blindness before I realized I could see the outline of him. Do I even need to mention the relief that came when I found I'd just needed to adjust to the lack of light? I sighed, still clutching his arm, which was attached to the hand still kneading my back.

"Then why do you sound _exactly_ like he used to?!" I protested before turning away with a sigh and a resigned shrug. "Let's face it: I'm cracking up. I knew it'd happen sooner or later . . ."

Word of advice: read the stories behind this dooming thought. Once you get all up to date on my rather dramatic past of bounty hunting and so forth, you'll understand that cracking up wasn't too far away. (And I _knew_ Kamino had looked like a mental institution!)

I felt the trooper ease into a sitting posture close beside me, and from the muffled sigh he took, I figured he was biting his lip a bit. Bet you didn't think they'd throw you in with a loony, did you? Whee, we shall all be happy and cheerful and eat uj cake by the sheet and dance all night until the nice orderlies in white uniforms come to so kindly escort us back to our safely padded cells so we don't hurt ourselves! I was so certain I was going crackers, but yet . . . I didn't _feel_ crazy. But then I never heard of a sociopath who felt crazy . . . but they normally were, and the friendly men in white outfits working in a white building had the straightjackets to prove it. Anyway, let us deviate from that subject and go back to more important things. Beside me, the young trooper fell absolutely silent for several minutes. He just didn't know how to handle me . . . I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his mind. (Besides, we were supposed to be figuring out _his_ memories, right? Not figuring out why he was so much like my Chev, _right_? Riiiight. _Now_ you're catching on.)

"If you want me to," he said finally, "I can go try to get my records . . . see if that assures you or not . . ."

"I don't know what it would do," I replied, feeling completely hopeless, "but you could try, I guess. It might just make me crazier, though . . ."

Heaving a sigh, I pulled my knees up into my chest, grimacing at a burst of residual pain in my side. _Note to self: Punch Boba in the nose. Or drop bricks on his head. Or sell _him _out to the bad guys._ Nah, better scratch Plan C. That'd be lowering myself to his level of scum. The trooper gave me a gentle, almost understanding squeeze on the shoulder (what the Force?) before slipping quietly from my cell. And suddenly, it went very quiet again as I found myself all alone. I had to be in solitary confinement; it was the only explanation for the complete and total silence. Unless it was some sort of torture chamber . . . like some sort of isolation room . . . Heck, if that were the case, than I really _would_ go nuts. Silence and dark paired with a battered, sleep-deprived body such as mine was a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

The trooper came back a while later and returned to my side just as quietly as he'd left. This time, however, he was clutching a datapad and a small tray with something like food on it. It didn't smell so great, and I was certain it tasted like mud mixed with—well, never mind—but just the thought of eating made my stomach rumble with anticipation. Turns out I hadn't eaten in days. Force, I must have been skinny as a rail by then . . . He held the tray out to me as he crouched at my side.

"Thought you might be hungry," he said, offering me the food. "Thought maybe you'd like to eat while you read."

He laid the datapad in my lap as I went after my dinner. It didn't taste _too_ bad, but I'd had better. I'd also had worse, too . . . The stuff the _kaminiise_ fed the clones comes to mind . . . After a bit, I was relatively satisfied, so I wiped my hands off on my thigh guards and picked up the 'pad. I squinted a bit as I flipped it on and its blue light flooded the cell, but after a moment, I adapted. I started scrolling through lists of training records, data files, and various other things that looked as if they were designed to give this trooper the best chance at being a . . . I stared. He was in training to be a commander? Force, that was . . . freaky. I kept scrolling through the data logs, reading and skimming whatever looked interesting. But when I came to the part with the heading entitled "Origin," something _really_ interesting happened. The screen flickered for a moment, and I could've sworn there were other words there behind those I was reading. I thought I'd seen entirely different paragraphs . . . But I shrugged it off, managing to convince myself it was just a power flux from the 'pad's power cell and not any suspicious Imperial activity. (Another word of wisdom: If it has to do with the Empire, it is worthy of suspicion! I know that now.) But those words I read in the trooper's records seemed in every way determined to make me positive this was _not_ my Chev. I sighed, passing the 'pad back. I had so thought it was he . . .

"Okay, you're gonna think I'm insane, I know," I told him. "I just thought . . . or I _hoped_ . . ."

"Well, at least you got to check," he said, shutting down the 'pad and leaving us in darkness again. "Too bad about your friend, though . . . What was he like?"

I sighed and rolled my shoulders backwards, flexing the muscles and working out all the little kinks as I thought. _Fierfek_, that was a long way back to think . . . It had been so long that I remembered only the really important stuff; meaning, I remembered it had been literally love at first sight, he kissed me on the first "date," and I was planning to marry him. Three cheers for my elephant-like memory, hey?

"Well . . . He was training to become a commander," I began with a tiny sigh, "like you. His _name_—not his _number_, mind you—was Chevron. We called him that because he had a series of inverted _v_'s down the front of his armor's chestplate."

I smiled a bit, rubbing my chestplate, expecting it to be his . . . But I realized sadly that it wasn't. I'd switched it out back on Kamino . . . Now that precious reminder of him was gone. I took a breath as I continued.

"But he was . . . really special. He was different from all the others—a lot kinder, gentler . . . I know this is going to sound incredibly stupid—to you, at least—probably—but we loved each other. He was . . . all I had sometimes. But years ago, he . . . he died. Killed in combat . . . So I guess I never really healed. Maybe that's why when I heard you, I thought you _were_ Chevron . . . But you _do_ sound just like him . . . _look_ just like him . . . You even carry yourself the way he did."

"Well, he sounds like he was a nice guy," the trooper replied. That sounded so _weird_ coming from him, what with his voice practically identical to Chev's. "He was lucky to get a girl like you."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, fine, we were lucky to get each other, but . . . a girl like _me_? I couldn't help but hear something in his tone of voice, some wistfulness, a secret desire to love and be loved like that. I really pitied him, to be honest, and I almost I reached over and clasped his hand. Oh, boy, wait till the Imps hear about _this_. I can see the news headline now: "Prisoner Befriends Guard!" Then the next day's edition: "_Lusankya_ Guard Assists Escapee!" My new "friend" sighed before continuing on his little train of thought.

"I don't think I'll be as lucky as him, though," he said mournfully. "I've never met a good enough girl, and then . . . when I do . . . I feel like I'm breaking a promise to someone . . . I don't know . . ."

"I was lucky to have him," I murmured. "But hey, don't feel bad. Somebody will come along. I just hope you don't have to be stuck with the Empire all your life."

"Sure," he scoffed. "Like I could ever _run_. It'd be impossible. I could try . . . but they've got a chip of some kind in me someplace; if I run, they'd track me."

A chip, huh? Hmm . . . It sounded undeniably like a micro tracker used by . . . prisons. I thought that was a bit ironic, but then again, where were we? Oh, come on, if you can't figure _that_ out . . . ! I suddenly remembered a fellow I'd met years back on Nar Shaddaa. He was an expert with technology and could manipulate just about any machine to do his bidding. I also knew he was good at deactivating pesky chips like that. Having one in you wasn't exactly life-threatening unless you escaped the people who inserted it . . . It was just . . . pesky. And I knew that if my trooper acquaintance ever wanted a real life, then he'd have to get the chip deactivated. (And I say _deactivated_ because removal surgery is almost always insanely dangerous. It's better to just shut the thing down.) I reached over and gently laid a hand on his shoulder as he sighed with despair. Poor guy; he'd resigned himself to the belief that he'd never get away from that blasted Empire.

"Hey, it's okay," I said. "I can help you . . . I've found places and met people who know how to get chips out . . . or at least deactivate them. Getting them out is . . . difficult . . . and dangerous. That's why they prefer deactivation. But if we could get out, we could go away, and I'd help you."

The words had no sooner come flying out of my mouth than I realized I sounded like a regular schemer. I sounded as if I was trying to haggle my way free, sweet-talk my path to good ol' freedom! I wondered if the trooper was wondering if I was telling the truth or just trying to get myself turned loose. He looked at me, almost a bit hopeful.

"If . . . if you could . . ." he said slowly, "then I'd go . . . I never wanted to be stuck here. I don't want to just stand and do nothing! I feel like there's something else for me to do, but I can't . . . I don't _KNOW_!"

He almost buried his face in his hands in desperation and internal agony, but I reached over and grabbed his arm with both my hands, gazing hard at him. Absently, I noticed that way deep down inside me was the same tingle I'd gotten from gazing at Chev that way. Maybe with this one, I could have someone again . . . and not just because of the similarities between him and Chevron. Please, I wasn't _that_ much of a depressed, lonely lover who couldn't go on living. I'd gotten better. Sort of. I took a breath as I continued trying to get him to see my reason behind this. It wasn't really a "Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" arrangement I was going for . . . This was a literal life-or-death situation. If he helped me out, I'd have life, and then I'd help him get his chip shut down, and he would, too.

"Listen to me," I told him firmly. "I nearly lost some of my dearest friends to this place, okay? I helped them . . . That's how I got in here, actually. But I can help _you_, too. It's the least I can do to help you have a life away from this place." I stared right into his eyes, turning his face slightly toward me. "Do you trust me?"

I was seriously going out on a limb with that. And for all I knew, the limb would snap off underneath me and I'd go plummeting to my doom at the bottom of a rock-lined canyon. (Hey, look! I waxed poetic!)

He looked at me for a while, almost as if he was studying me. He took a somewhat sharp breath and looked straight at me, his eyes almost completely black in the cell's darkness. Then he gave me a single nod.

"I—I do. I trust you, like . . . like I've trusted someone this much once before . . ."

_Like I trusted Chev so long ago,_ I thought.

"I think I know exactly what you mean," I said. "But listen; we can't just run out of here and expect to have a few hours before they're after us. We'd have to shut down enough cameras to clear the way . . . Then when they come to get me, we're long gone."

That sounded like a good enough plan: hack the system and alter the camera feeds so they'd think I was still in my cell . . . Then escape while that static image was on the screen. _That_ was a little trick I'd learned from Sevvie, and boy, was I grateful I'd paid attention! He tilted his head, thinking for a moment.

"I can try and get you to an access port . . ." he said, "try and get you into the system. If I can do that, you'll take me with you?"

My heart twisted at the expression on his face. He looked so desperate, so completely miserable . . . It was all I could do to keep from throwing my arms around his neck and giving him a huge encouraging hug. It was just that that look of sheer desperation made me feel so darn sorry for him. This was no ordinary _Lusankya_ guard. This one was special.

"Yes," I nodded. "I've never broken a promise . . . except one and that was for reasons I couldn't help. But _this_ I _can_. I'll take you with me. We'll get on the first shuttle we can and split for the Outer Rim."

The promise I _had_ broken was that one to Chevron so long ago . . . when I'd sworn I'd return before he was deployed. Well, we all know how _that_ ended, don't we? I ended up sitting in a cold, dark cell with a less-than-happy-with-his-job Stormtrooper whose number was startlingly like Chev's but who didn't have a name. But at my vow to take him with me, the trooper actually _smiled_ and picked up his datapad, flipping it on and studying it for a moment.

"I think I can work this into the system," he explained. "They didn't teach me much, but there's a lot I just _know _. . . Gets a bit creepy, really, but it's kinda handy . . . like right now."

He bent his head down over the 'pad, getting instantly to work. I watched in pretty much pure amazement as he typed at that thing, working his way through Imperial security passwords and decrypting their various firewalls and whatnot. Apparently, the system was capable of keeping out everyone except _him_. Of course, there was a split second where I wondered if he was actually allowed access to the network . . . since he _did_, after all, hold the keys to my cell and the cameras in and outside it. But he didn't strike me as the sort to flat-out lie like that, so I kept watching. After several minutes, he exhaled heavily and passed the 'pad to me.

"There you go," he said, basically handing me the entire Imperial network, open and ready for whatever trouble I could cause. He watched me work for a moment before suddenly giving a start and biting his lip. "I think I oughtta leave . . . I don't know when the higher-ups are going to come back on their sweep . . . I'll be right outside."

He quickly stood and headed for the door, tossing me a short wave of farewell before disappearing out into the hallway. I heard him take his position at my door and I wondered if there weren't a few people up at the security station that had seen my cell's cam shut down earlier. For all I knew, there were folks somewhere celebrating whatever they'd thought my guard had done to me. (And we all know what that is . . . Imps are notorious for assaults.) But I just shrugged that off, knowing full well what had _really_ gone on, as I sat there typing fiercely at the 'pad. I wove my way through the network, dragging up the schematics for _Lusankya_. Yep, this was a SSD, all right; I'd know that arrow-like shape anywhere. But it didn't _seem_ like we were in space . . . A little more searching revealed we were _underground_ on Coruscant. Talk about your pleasant (or is it?) surprise! I kept hacking the system, mapping out a route for our escape and loading it into the 'pad's memory. Then I worked at shutting down the security cams. I started by opening the feed to the cam outside my cell's door, where I saw my little trooper friend standing on loyal guard duty. _Loyal_, my _shebs_! He was breakin' out as soon as I cleared the path! Executing a few commands, I recorded a couple minutes of his standing there before flipping it over to every camera on my cell's circuit. When that little process was finished, I shut down the main feed before closing off every other cam along our escape route. Mission accomplished, I climbed to my feet and walked to the door.

"Okay, done," I said. "Cameras are off. If they go look at 'em, they'll just see you even though we're gonna be long gone. Want to let me out now?"

That was something of a test. I still didn't really know if he was on my side, but then the door swung open and I was made certain of it. He waved me out, and I felt my heart soar at the thought of being free from Imperial hands.

"All right, single file, please; no running; thank you . . ."

Well, my little guard had a sense of humor! Nice to see. He cracked a grin at me and winked, and I laughed. That felt pretty good in itself . . . I hadn't laughed in Force knew how long. I returned his smile before taking his hand and leading him off down the route I'd plotted out. And you know what? Having his hand clasped in mine nearly took my breath away. It just felt so . . . natural. As if I'd done it before.

_Chev, are you _sure_ it's not you beside me?_

"Keep quiet," I told him. "We've got a mile or so of tunnels beneath the prison before we come out street-level." I shot a quick look at him, wondering if he'd caught that. I wanted to know what his reaction would be, but it was neutral. He must not have known _Lusankya_ was a freakin' underground _ship_. Yet he _did_ seem excited to go topside, so I gave a tiny grin. "Should have a clear shot out . . . Just stick with me; we'll make it. I promise."

He nodded at me and followed, clutching my hand as hard as I was his. We wove through the darkest corridors, sticking to the shadows and following my route. It wasn't such a bad plan, actually, and I felt rather proud of myself for concocting it. Of course, that pride disintegrated instantly when I saw several shadows moving across the wall of the hallway right in front of us. Quickly, I turned and shoved my new friend into a nearby corner, squeezing in beside him.

"Be quiet," I murmured, reaching up and resting my hand on his chestplate as a warning to keep still. "Guards coming."

I wondered if they were coming for me, but he must've wondered if they were coming for _him_, because I felt him tense. I turned and looked up at him, and he looked down at me, and I felt a sudden, strange urge to take his face in my hands and kiss him. Yep, you heard right: _kiss_ _him. _As in passionate lip contact? Look who's getting desperate now, eh? Smoochin' on the Stormies . . . Whatever is this galaxy coming to?! I wondered why but then thought it was something in his eyes. There was this gleam of fright there that had appeared as soon as the Stormtrooper guards' shadows showed up on that wall. I gazed at him for a moment before looking out into the hall. The guards were gone; their footsteps were growing fainter, which meant they were on their way to the other side of _Lusankya_. I looked around for a moment to ensure no more were following before turning and sighing heavily.

"That was close," I whispered. "We've just gotta avoid those guys. Since the cams are down, they're the only things we have to worry about."

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Skirt the beacons."

I positively wheeled around and stared at him. _Beacons?_ That was . . . _Chev's_ term for the "regular" clone troopers way back when in the good ol' days. I had heard no one before or since use that word, so I was startled to hear it come out of my new friend. _Someone_ had to have taught him that word . . . unless . . . I quickly shook my head. Nobody re-cloned clones. That was just stupid. I shot him a forced grin and nodded.

"That's exactly right. Let's keep going; we only have a little farther."

I took his hand and led him off again, winding through yet _more_ dark corridors and hallways. I began to wonder if we'd gotten lost, but quick glances at the datapad assured me that we hadn't. Eventually, we rounded a corner and came to the escape pod bays. My scan of the ship had revealed a tunnel leading from one of them up through a secret hatch in the street, so that was the way we were going to get out and away from all that Imperial madness. I ducked into the pod bay, found the empty one, and motioned to it.

"Okay, this is it," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Once we get through this, we're free."

_Free._ Force, that sounded so _good_! I scrambled into the "secret" (Well, it isn't anymore, is it?) tunnel and started crawling upwards. He climbed in behind me, and I noticed the fit was a tighter fit for him than it was for me. But he managed, and he kept up pretty well. In fact, he was so close behind me that the couple of times that my grasp slipped, he reached up, grabbed a hold of my backplate, and pushed me up to a firmer finger hold. The whole time, I couldn't help but think to myself, _We're getting out. We're actually getting out!_ Eventually, I bumped into something metal and realized excitedly that it was the hatch. I reached up and shoved it off before clambering out. Sunshine streamed down to me and into the tunnel, and I just sighed and closed my eyes before turning and thrusting my hand down for him, grinning broadly.

"C'mon . . . we're out!"


	4. Kinda Sorta Free at Last

**Chapter Three – Kinda Sorta Free at Last**

We'd gotten out too easily for it to have been a clean getaway, right? You're probably wondering, "Hey, where's the catch?!" _right_? Well, hold your banthas; I'm getting to it. I'm just taking the . . . erm, _scenic route_.

My trooper friend took my hand and climbed out of the hatch, and as soon as he saw Coruscant and all it's metropolitan glory, his eyes went wide. The poor guy had never seen the light of day before. He'd never seen skyscrapers or spaceships or all that other stuff we take for granted. Inside, I was thankful that the day was beautiful and the sky was blue up above those towering 'scrapers. He stared around, completely dumbstruck at the scene laid out before him, what with all the airspeeders miles above our heads and the people hustling and bustling around on the ground . . . His mouth opened to form the word "Whoa," but nothing came out. He was too surprised by the panorama of the city, and my heart swelled with joy. He was going to get a chance at a real life, and it didn't hurt that I was free from _Lusankya_, either! So you know what I did? I threw my arms around him and _hugged_ him.

"I know . . ." I said. "It's beautiful."

I'd never cared much for Coruscant until that moment, to be honest, _despite_ the fact that I was born there once upon a time. I hugged the trooper for a couple minutes until I realized what I was doing, and at that point, I let him go. He looked a little startled by my embrace, but that faded as he looked around at the cityscape some more.

"I—I've never been topside before," he whispered, eyes darting around. I've never seen . . . this . . . wow . . ."

I'm not afraid to admit that tears started welling in my eyes as I watched him drink in all the new sights and sounds. I couldn't even say anything because of the enormous lump in my throat. He was still so much like Chevron that I couldn't even comprehend it. I just let him look around for a while before I took his hand and quietly led him away from that tunnel back into _Lusankya_.

"C'mon," I said. "We have to get off this planet before they find out we're gone."

"Then lead the way, Miss," he said, following quite willingly. "Just be careful . . . If they start tracking me . . . we may not be able to hide very well."

"Oh, we'll hide, all right," I replied. "But quit calling me 'Miss.' My _name_ is Rogue."

I turned and flashed a smile at him before leading him off toward the docking bays for the first order of business: grab a shuttle and skip town.

"Sorry, _Rogue_," he answered, beaming at me.

I couldn't help but think that I could really come to like him. I mean, he could never replace Chev, but I guess I was ready to love again. I suppose I was ready to move on with my life a little bit and have someone I could care for. I smiled gently at him as he used my name for the first time.

"That's better. But what do I call you? I can't call you by your 'number.' You're not a _droid_."

"Well, I don't really have a—"

He froze mid-stride, his gaze locked on something not too far off. I followed his direction of gaze and found it fixed on a group of four Stormtroopers. I swallowed hard, feeling my stomach clench up. If they saw us, they'd know we were escapees, and we'd be hauled back to that awful place. And if they didn't brainwash us, then they'd certainly kill us! I took another glance at the troopers; they certainly were more heavily armored than most . . . But they were still Imperial troopers, and we were still escaped Imperial prisoners who were about to be not-so-escaped.

"Frack . . . They're heading right for us!" my friend exclaimed. "We've gotta move!"

I took one look at those troopers as my fight-or-flight responses kicked in. Hello, adrenaline. Long time, no feel. I didn't feel like fighting; I'd rather be _alive_, so I went for the "flight" route. Unfortunately, "flight" meant running away and weaving through thousands of people in an attempt to lose four. Oh, my little 170, where are you when I need you the most?! Oh. Right. Rusting on Geo. Sorry.

"C'mon, let's move it!" I cried, grabbing his hand again and dashing away for the back alleys.

As we ran, I noticed that the troopers were a fair distance behind us but obviously had us in their scopes . . . and it seemed to me that they seemed awfully familiar.


	5. Hunt

**Chapter Four – Hunt**

The four troopers stopped dead in their tracks for a moment, watching Rogue and her trooper companion fleeing them. Four pairs of eyes followed the frightened pair for a bit as one of them sighed and tapped a fist on his chestplate. It wasn't any ordinary Imperial-issue chestplate, however; it was _Republic_-issue Katarn armor such as the old commandos had used so long before. These weren't just any troopers; they were Omega Squad. Larra had called them, enlisted their aid in rescuing Rogue. They had been on their way to _Lusankya_ to break in and execute that little rescue, but it looked to them as if they were a bit late.

Fi lifted a pair of macrobinoculars to his helmet's visor, peering through them and tracking Rogue and her little friend through the crowd. He made sure to keep them in view at all times as he spoke.

"Sarge, is that them?" he asked.

"Think so . . ." Niner replied.

"Doesn't look like they're that pleased to see us," Atin added.

"No, they don't," Niner said. "Fi, stay with me. Atin, Dar, try and figure out where they're heading—maybe we can persuade them before they get away!"

Atin and Darman raced away to one side, not even having to push their way through the crowds; the people just naturally migrated away from their path. Niner and Fi went the other direction, running as hard and fast as they knew how after their "targets." They had to catch up and explain before those two got away; otherwise there'd be no chance of Larra and the Delta boys ever tracking Rogue down again.

* * *

My trooper friend glanced behind him as we ran, and I knew he was scanning the area for our pursuers. Force, I hadn't thought the Imps would come after us so soon! I'd expected a few hours to at least _try_ to get away! I hadn't even felt like running for my life so early in the day; my side didn't like it either, protesting the sudden motion with occasional sharp bursts of pain. Oh, just heal up already!

"They must have split up," he said. "The other two could be trying to head us off! Rogue, we're going to have to try and lose them—c'mon!"

He grabbed my hand and dragged me off into a few side walkways, weaving through photo-happy tourists and a few street vendors as we tried to lose those guys behind us. I seriously didn't want to get caught again . . . I was getting myself ready to run all the way to the other side of Coruscant if only to save my skin. He led me through a huge square filled with people, delicately guiding me through the masses before coming to the opposite side. Once there, he took me back around, slowly working on doubling back to the docking bays. Ohh, this guy was _good_. He had an incredibly high intelligence level, and when we came to a halt and did a scan of the area, we saw nothing. I looked around, breathing a bit heavily, before looking up at him.

"Did we lose 'em? We okay?"

"Yeah . . . I think so."

He was barely winded from our little jog (hah!) through the streets of Coruscant, but he gave me a thumbs-up sign, and I grinned. I gathered my breath and exhaled in one long sigh.

"Whew," I murmured. "Well, at least that's done. Let's find us a shuttle and get the heck out of here."

"Right behind you," he replied, and off we went.

* * *

They may have lost Niner and Fi, but Darman and Atin were following quietly at a safe distance, being sure to remain out of Rogue and the trooper's peripheral vision. If there was one thing they _didn't_ want, it was to spook those two again. They'd gone on enough of a chase; it'd gotten hard to track them after they'd gone into the crowd, but Darman and Atin had managed quite satisfactorily. Atin clicked his back teeth and opened up the comlink channel to Niner's helmet.

"Sarge . . . we got 'em. They're heading for one of the docking bays. Should we tell Delta?"

"_So long as those two don't jet off before we've got a chance of explaining,"_ Niner replied with what sounded like a sigh.

Atin nodded at Darman, who returned the gesture and sent the notifying comm transmission across the plaza to Larra, Sevvie, and the Deltas, who were waiting in the shadows for that call. When the call came through, they stepped out into view, spreading out a bit so they wouldn't be a bunch and thus draw attention to themselves. Boss looked over at Larra with a slow nod.

"Got a visual from Dar," he said. "Rogue and an Imp trooper are headed for a shuttle in one of the bays."

"Is she okay?" Scorch asked concernedly.

"She's walking," Boss replied, uncertain of the status of her memory.

"Wait a minute," Sev said. "_Imp_ trooper? She's sold out . . . ?"

"Why am I not surprised?" Sevvie grumbled.

Larra deftly smacked him across the arm and shot him a nasty glare before lifting a pair of macros to her face. She stared through them for a moment, trying to find Rogue's whereabouts . . . and when she did, she froze visibly.

"I don't believe it . . ." she began, sputtering a bit. "How dare they . . ."

"Believe what?" Scorch questioned, looking at her curiously. "How dare who? What's going on?"

"Beats me," Boss shrugged. "But I just don't see Rogue as a sell-out."

"Larra?" Fixer asked. "What's up?"

"I wouldn't know if you'd remember him yet," Larra replied. "Sevvie, take a good look at that Imp."

She passed him the macros, and he took a glance through them, inhaling sharply. He stiffened as he raised and lowered them several times, each time not believing what he was seeing. He stared through them in shock, shaking his head.

"What . . . don't tell me they . . . _osik_!"

"All right, all right; that's it," Scorch mumbled, lifting his own macros to his eyes. His memory _had_ actually improved, and he stared at the scene before him for several long minutes. "Holy . . . They _didn't_?! Heck, no _wonder_ she's with him!"

"Yeah," Larra nodded. "This isn't good . . . Would he remember anything, though?"

"Oh, come on," Sevvie sighed. "He's been dead for eight years; I doubt he would."

"Then that wouldn't be him!" Scorch replied, still staring. "Must be a look-alike . . . You can't resurrect a guy who's dead and buried eight years!"

"You mean to tell me that you're staring at that Chevron guy from way back when?" Fixer asked, straining his eyes to see what the others were seeing in close-up clarity.

"Ayuh," Scorch answered with a single, slow nod. "Alive and well and on the run with Rogue."

"_Fierfek_ . . ." Fixer whistled. "I don't _even_ want to question that . . ."

"Should we move in?" Boss asked.

"I think we should," Sevvie said.

"Yes, let's," Larra agreed, taking steps forward.

She slowly crossed the plaza toward Rogue and the trooper accompanying her, and when she was close enough, she called out to them.

"Rogue! Rogue, hey there!"


	6. Away and Clear

**Chapter Five – Away and Clear**

I wheeled around, eyes going wide at seeing Larra approaching. Talk about my saving grace! I hurried toward her, my friend right behind me, still keeping his eyes peeled for our pursuers. When I reached Larra, I clasped her hands, glad to see her, but then I dropped my voice to a whisper.

"What're you doing here?! You know we're on the run from some Imp troopers?!"

Larra chuckled a bit, and I lifted an eyebrow. This was no laughing matter! Here I was, in the middle of a life-or-death situation, and she was _chuckling_.

"You mean the four that've been looking for you ever since your brother hauled you off?" she asked, still laughing a little. "Just our friends Omega Squad. Nothin' to worry about."

Well, that was certainly a relief! I heaved a sigh and heard my friend do the same. Larra turned and her gaze rested on him a while; I noticed it and wondered if she saw the same thing I did. But she sighed quietly and turned her attention back to me.

"Come on," she said. "No telling how long you have before the Imps are all over the place, looking for you. We'll get you someplace safe."

I nodded and grabbed my trooper friend's (Force, I need to call him something else) hand tightly, gazing at him for a moment.

"We can trust her. She's a very good friend." I looked into his eyes. "Okay?"

He nodded, still trusting me as I'd asked him to back in my cell, but he still seemed a little bit hesitant. I knew he was scared; I was too. I hadn't forgotten about his chip.

"All right . . . all right."

I watched Larra as she met gazes with him, staring straight into his eyes, and I _knew_ she'd seen the same as I. She saw Chevron there, not just your ordinary trooper who bides his time by guarding prison cells. I saw her inhale silently but sharply, as if knives had just been thrust into her stomach, and I knew what was going through her mind: _"It's my fault; I didn't react fast enough."_ Geo still lived with her, apparently. Sevvie gave me a short, curt nod (Oh dear . . . _Note to self: Make peace with Sevvie_) before looking at the trooper.

"Hey, you got back to your girlfriend . . ."

An expression of sheer bewilderment crossed my friend's face, and I felt my stomach contract. There went all hope of ever having Chev back . . . But oh well. He was nice, just the same. I _could_ still love him, given time . . . Yet I couldn't help but snigger as Larra smacked Sevvie quite hard across the chestplate with a glare that clearly said _"Ne'johaa, vod!"_

"All right, come on," Larra said, motioning to the docking bays. "We don't have much time. The Omegas will be right behind us, covering."

We dashed off toward the bays, where there were two freighters sitting in adjoining docks. My heart soared when I saw that one was mine; they'd flown it in to save me! I nearly ran at it and hugged its beat-up old hull with its scratched paint and peeling Fett emblem. But I _miraculously_ managed to restrain myself and asked Scorch who the other freighter belonged to. He explained it was his squads' and Larra's; Omega had flown it in for the rescue, and they would fly it back to the Rebels. That rather excited me; it meant we were going to be traveling around the galaxy in _my_ baby. We didn't waste any time boarding our respective freighters; I had about a minute to thank the Omegas for their help and to apologize for running. They tossed me a few two-fingered salutes, said it was no problem, and then they were gone. The others and I were gone shortly after, and frankly, I was glad I was watching Coruscant recede. If Coruscant was behind me, then so was _Lusankya_ and all the awful stuff that went on inside it. I didn't care if the Empire was coming for me because of my friend's tracker chip; I actually felt _safe_. I hadn't felt truly safe in . . . well, years. I looked at Larra and actually _hugged_ her as soon as we were away.

"I'm glad you guys came after me," I said. "I don't know how I'd have gotten out of there if it hadn't been for his wanting to leave, too." I nodded at my friend, grinning broadly. "We rigged the cameras to play a looped image until somebody over there figures it out. I'd say we've got a few hours."

"How'd you manage that?" Fixer asked me, and I smirked.

"His datapad linked into the cam circuits after a little hacking. Heh."

Six-Three-Six (ahh, cursed numerical sigs!) shrugged a bit, as if passing glory on to me, and Sevvie actually _grinned_. Talk about a miracle. Since I showed up on Kamino again, he hadn't cracked a smile one single, solitary time.

"Looks like you've been learning some," he chuckled, and Larra jabbed him in the stomach.

"It may _look_ like Chev," she whispered to him, barely audible, "but maybe he's _not_, all right? Just watch it."

I stole a glance at Six-Three-Six and tilted my head. Now that we were out from under the Imperial thumb, he looked more like Chev than he ever had before. But then again, it could've just been Larra's mentioning it that triggered it. It was frightening, really. I shivered slightly and then felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I found Boss standing there, holding Chev's old chestplate in his hands. I couldn't help but squeal with glee as I scooped it up and held it close.

"Oh, you got it back for me!" I gushed. "You guys . . ."

"Well, Lar did," Boss admitted, "but we knew how important it is to ya."

I grinned, gazing lovingly at the plate. Beside me, I noticed that Six-Three-Six was sort of eyeing the plate, and I exchanged an almost hopeful glance with Larra and Sevvie.

"Did that belong to your friend?" Six-Three-Six asked me, but Larra beat me to it.

"I can answer," she said. "I knew him, too, and, yeah, it was his chestplate. See the chevrons?" She pointed them out, receiving a nod of acknowledgment. "There was one for each of us: him, Sevvie here, and me. We all trained together . . . but then Sevvie washed out, and he . . . he was stabbed."

Interesting how you leave off mentioning that the fourth _v_ was _me_, Lar. But then again, I guess that might not have been very wise. I looked over at them, feeling a bit disheartened by the thoughts that came with the mention of such terrible things.

"And I . . . I found him," I explained. "He'd been dead a while . . . but I took him and buried him . . . And I kept this because . . . well, I wanted to remember him. I gave his helmet to Larra so she'd have something of his, too." I turned away from the group for a moment as I popped out my black and silver plate and replaced it with Chev's. "And I've been wearing it ever since."

Something—thought I didn't know what—flashed in Six-Three-Six's eyes (or the very depths of them, at least), but he just shrugged. Larra sighed, and the Deltas sort of scattered out across the ship to work on equipment, repair their armor, or whatever. Or maybe they'd just left to give Larra and me some time to talk. Eventually, she, Six-Three-Six, and I were the only ones left in the main hold, and even he wandered off a short distance. Sevvie had waltzed off to _my_ cockpit, checking with me for a route before he did. I told him Corellia, and he hurried off to get us there. (Now I know I said I knew a guy on Nar Shaddaa who could shut Six-Three-Six's chip down, so you're probably wondering "Why _Corellia_?" Well, it's simple. I don't like Nar Shaddaa.)

"So, it seems like you two are on a mission," Larra said, crossing her arms. "Where to?"

I sighed and took a seat on a bench near one of the walls and looked over at her.

"We were just running," I explained, "just trying to get away from _Lusankya_. And he's got a transmitter chip in him somewhere . . . I was gonna take him to find someone to deactivate it so we won't get traced by the Imps. But other than that . . . he was guarding me down there in _Lusankya_ . . . and he wanted to leave so badly. So I told him I'd help him if he'd help me. So we did and we got out of there. But the thing was . . ." My voice dropped to a whisper. "Lar, when I first laid eyes on him, I swore he was Chev. Look at him . . . doesn't he look just like him? And not only that, but he _sounds exactly_ like him. And . . . and look how he's standing there . . . just like Chev used to . . ."

I nodded over to the corner Boss and Scorch were crouched in, showing Six-Three six their rifles. He looked pretty impressed by it, and those two commandos were being so friendly to him . . . It would've been like the old times if he _was_ Chev.

"I'd say you're going insane," Sev said, passing by, "except I see it too."

"Really?" I looked up at him, and he nodded. "Then you've remembered a few things since we met up on Kamino. That's good for all of you." I paused and took another look at Six-Three-Six, who was cradling a DC-17 rifle in the crook of his arm. "No, seriously, I thought I was cracking up. But since you see it too, then I know I'm still on my rocker."

I offered a small smile, and Larra just faintly returned it as she came and sat down beside me. I quietly watched the exchange between Six-Three-Six, Scorch, and Boss for a few minutes until Sevvie came out and nearly dragged my trooper friend (and partner in crime, I suppose. Hah) up to the cockpit to help get us to Corellia. Larra looked at me with a tilted head.

"You know, Rouge, you couldn't have picked a better place," she informed me. "That was where everyone but Ryder was stuck after their brainwash."

Well, this was new information. I'd never heard _that_ before. Kind of added an ironic twist to the entire thing, didn't it? I figured that since she was mentioning it with a somewhat peaceful tone, that was the place where they managed to crack the conditioning. Gee, that was sweet. If only _I_ could have that good of luck and discover that Six-Three-Six really _was_ my Chev come back. I sighed and shrugged.

"Anybody who knows how to do anything will be there," I said, meaning the chip. I hung my head for a minute, thinking, before I turned and shot a side glance at Larra. "Do you think . . . you think it _could_ be him? I mean . . . he looks . . . acts . . . _talks_ so much like him . . . When he grabbed my hand—while we were running—it even _felt_ like him. But . . . it isn't possible . . . _I_ buried him after Geo!"

"And I watched him die, I know," Larra replied softly. "But . . . it can't _not_ be him. There's too much of Chevron in him for it to not be. Did he tell you what his number was?"

I nodded, feeling myself begin to tremble. My heart was beating a little faster than normal as I looked at Larra and nodded slowly. I felt my throat tighten and my lungs contract, as if my body had decided to mutiny and keep me from breathing properly. The moment he'd told me his designation came flooding back, and I nodded a little more rapidly.

"He said . . . he said it was TH-Six-Three-Six . . ."

Larra went deathly still, her eyes as wide as saucers. Her face went suddenly very pale, and her jaw was clenched tightly. I very nearly reached over and whispered _"Udesii"_ to her, but after a moment, she managed to recover enough to speak.

"My Force . . . they Imperialized his number . . . _TH_, lengthen it to make _Theta_ . . . How _dare_ they try to copy him!"

Her fists clenched even more tightly than her jaw had ever been, and I took a deep breath. She wasn't just shocked anymore; she was _angry_. And I've seen her when she gets angry . . . It isn't pretty, nope. I heaved a sigh.

"But how . . . That I want to know . . . I want to know so much . . . Could he ever _be_ him? He—he said that sometimes he felt strange things . . . like he wanted to find a nice girl but always felt like he was breaking a promise to someone whenever he met one . . . Lar . . . So many years ago, Chev promised to be _mine_ alone! What is going on?!"

Let's face it: I was desperate. I was miserable. I wanted answers, and I wanted them _now_. I wanted to know if I should hold out hope that this was my long-lost Chev somehow alive and well again or if I should withdraw myself before my hopes were raised too high. That was the last thing I wanted. I didn't want to have my hopes raised and then dashed against a rock . . . an Empire-sized rock. Larra looked at me mournfully; she understood how I felt. If by this I gained my _cyar'ika_, then she would gain her _vod_, and it'd be vice versa for him. Win-win situation, hey? I love those . . .

"I don't know," she said. "The Imps know that it would insult at least me, draw me out . . . But how would he be able to recall it, if . . . Dammit, listen to me. Do you still have that datapad he used to get into the Imperial network?"

I nodded before digging around in my belt. I knew I'd stashed it in there . . . Just had to find it . . . I fished it out, glanced at it, and passed it to her. She flipped it on and started scrolling through it.

"What're you looking for?" I asked.

She turned and lifted the 'pad, showing me his data logs, all chock-full of his records and everything he'd ever been, done, said, etc.

"These. Now . . . let's try to find anything that jumps out . . ."

She fiddled away at the 'pad, typing hurriedly. I watched for a while, wondering how she'd learned to hack so well. Oh, wait. Sevvie. He must teach everyone how to hack systems! Or maybe she took it in ARC training . . . I shrugged to myself, watching. After a few minutes, Sevvie returned from the cockpit.

"Y'know, that trooper is a whole lot like . . ." he began, but then he saw the datapad in Larra's hands. "Ooh, _hellooo _. . . let me, let me . . ."

He snatched the 'pad from her (incurable techno wizard, him), and fiddled with it for a while. But suddenly, he looked down at it, and his eyes went as wide as Larra's had when I'd told her Six-Three-Six's number.

"By the Force," he breathed.

"What?" I asked, but no one responded. Larra was looking over his shoulder, her face paler than it had been before. "What?! Somebody tell me!"

Sevvie passed me the 'pad, and I nearly fainted at the words I saw written there across the screen. He'd hacked into the personal file of an Imperial captain and had pulled up info on Six-Three-Six. I scrolled through it, reading.

"_Test subject has been chosen. The Empire's first re-clone is to be of a commander by the designation of Theta-636. This clone's records from the Wars have been carefully studied; he had the makings of an excellent commander but was killed in action several years ago. How interesting it should be to 'resurrect' him."_

I could barely breathe when I saw those words, and my heart skipped a beat. Well, it felt like it skipped more than that, but judging from the fact that I was still alive, it hadn't. I didn't even bother to pas the 'pad back to Sevvie as I sat heavily down. My head seriously felt quite light, as if I was going to pass out into a cold faint at any moment, without warning. This was too much . . . I exhaled deeply, staring up at Larra and Sevvie.

"My Force." That was all I could say.


	7. A Clone of a Clone

**Chapter Six – A Clone of a Clone**

To say I was in literal shock would be a really, _really_ big understatement. I was completely and totally floored by what I'd just read. But somehow I managed to pull myself together, so I looked back down at the 'pad and scrolled through this Captain Brogan's entries. I saw the part about the "test subject's" new designation and nearly fainted when I thought about how he was sitting up in the cockpit at that very moment. Yet I was relieved to see that they hadn't done the genetic tampering like the _kaminiise_ had so long ago. That meant that if it _was_ my Chev, he'd be . . . normal. I kept reading, and my eyes widened a bit when I saw something unusual.

"_We all have high hopes for him, for it appears that he has some knowledge of the military. I had been expecting a clean slate, as it were. That is what surprises me, I believe. He appears in every way to have the same knowledge as the original's records claim he had."_

Oh, _Force_. If he knew all the military stuff he'd known all those years ago, then maybe, just _maybe_, he could remember me. Maybe there was hope after all. I read a little more and found _his_ private entries . . . his personal thoughts. I wondered if I shouldn't be reading them, but I was just too darn curious! I had to know as much as I could, in case there _was_ that hope.

"_Today I was in the mess, just thinking to myself. I sit alone at my table; guess I'm not 'one of the guys' yet. I dunno. But I was sitting, just thinking, and, suddenly, a female officer-in-training came up to me. She asked me who I was, and when I told her my sig, she actually _sat down_. She had heard about me from Captain Brogan, and asked why I was so . . . _different_. I wanted to ask her what she meant. I just shrugged._

_Eventually, she asked me if I wanted to go with her topside a few days soon, have dinner and go to a show. I wanted to say yes. But something in my mind told me that I shouldn't, that there was only one person I would _ever_ say 'yes' to on such an occasion. I reluctantly declined._

_She just got up and never came back. Now I'm still thinking."_

My stomach turned a somersault when I read that entry, and it wasn't because a pretty girl had walked up and asked him to dinner. It was this line: "_But something in my mind told me that I shouldn't, that there was only one person I would _ever_ say 'yes' to on such an occasion." _That startled me. Chevron had been so . . . devoted to _me_; it would have been impossible to get him to suffer from a case of wandering eye. I'd noticed back when we first fell in together that the only time his eye would wander was if he was watching me and I moved. I guess any girl should feel special she's ended up with a man who won't give any other woman the time of day. But still, I felt sorry for Six-Three-Six. If he _wasn't_ Chev, then he had no reason to be suffering under these strange feelings he mentioned, those half-visible memories he wasn't sure were his or not.

I read a bit farther and found that the last entry was about _me_. It was about them bringing me to _Lusankya_ as a wounded, bloody heap. (Okay, so it wasn't worded like that, but I _was_ the one with the blaster bolt in my side. I would know a thing or two!) I was relieved to see that he'd never had any intention of . . . harming me, despite what this Captain Brogan thought about male "urges." That scum of the earth . . . Sighing heavily and trying to grapple with my spinning, overwhelmed little head, I tossed the 'pad back to Sevvie. I looked up at him and Larra.

"You mean they . . . cloned . . . a clone?" I asked, still not really believing it.

"Exactly," Sevvie nodded, and Larra's fists clenched.

"Of course," she grumbled, "not just to use him to get _me_, but also to capitalize on the old Chev . . . _Etyc chakaare!_ They knew he was a good commander! Damn them . . ."

I chewed at my bottom lip for a moment, my eyes darting around the room to see if anyone else was hanging around to listen. There was no one; all the Deltas had wandered off to other parts of the ship and Six-Three-Six was up in the cockpit minding the store, as it were. We were all alone.

"You don't suppose they could've made a carbon copy instead of just a genetic replication, do you?" I asked, trying not to sound _too_ hopeful. "If . . . if they did . . . then he might remember us. I know it's a long shot, but it could be like Chev never died!"

Larra frowned, and I instantly felt my bubble burst even though she hadn't said anything. Yet. She tapped her chin with her index finger and just sort of stood there, thinking. I felt a bit angry with her waiting to answer me. She may have been thinking about getting her brother back, but _I_ was thinking about having the man I'd wanted to be the father of my children being returned to me!

"If it's a carbon copy," she said finally and slowly, "memories and all, then we can't remind him about his death. It'd be too risky."

Now that I agreed with. Rule of thumb, folks: _Never remind a resurrected man about his own death._ Sevvie nodded.

"I'm ready to vote that we don't tell this one anything. If he remembers, he remembers. If not, that's all right, too."

_No, it _isn't I wanted to scream. He didn't understand. He'd _never_ understood what Chev and I had. He just cracked jokes about it and sang songs about us sitting on an aiwha and kissing. I sighed, and they looked at me, waiting for my answer. I nodded slowly, though something in the back of my mind was reminding me that I didn't follow orders too well.

"I just want him back," I admitted. "But this is . . . weird. If . . . if he doesn't remember anything, then we should give him a name of sorts. We—_I_—can't keep calling him 'he'!"

Larra arched an eyebrow at me.

"I can do something about that. You've never wondered why I call all the Deltas different names, have you?"

"No," I replied with a shake of my head. "I just thought it was natural . . . kind of like how all the ARC captains had names." I paused, wandering off into a trail of thought about one of the commanders that had been lost to the murderous Order 66 so long ago. His name was Commander Cody. I knew he was a good man even though I'd only met him once. Poor guy . . . brainwashed by the Empire. I sighed and shook my head, forcing myself back out of all those nasty memories. "Lar, if you can do something . . . I hope you can."

That was my permission for her to try whatever she was going to try to get him a name. _I_ wanted to call him—well, you already know what I wanted to call him. But I'd told Larra and Sevvie I wouldn't mention it. Larra nodded and headed for the cockpit to fetch our resident re-clone, and as she left, I realized that I'd only promised not to mention his _death_ . . . I hadn't promised not to tell him _anything_. I also realized I could talk to him, see if he actually had any recollection of . . . well, anything! It was sort of a "Hey, why not?" moment. After all, it couldn't hurt . . . _right_?

Larra returned a short time later, Six-Three-Six right behind her. He looked at me for a moment, as if hoping I'd know what was going on.

"She said . . . you want to give me a name?" he asked, sounded surprised.

"We have to call you something . . . anything," I explained. "I can't keep jabbing a thumb at you and referring to you with masculine pronouns! It just doesn't feel natural to me . . . Besides, now that you're away from the Empire and we're on our way to get that chip deactivated, you'll need a real name."

I smiled at him and stood, walking closer to him and reaching for his hands. He didn't seem to hesitate as I clasped them between mine and gave them a gentle squeeze. Of course, he didn't know the reason behind that squeeze, either. He didn't know what I knew . . . Larra looked at me, almost warningly, before looking at him.

"Listen, I'm something of a Jedi," she said. "I can carefully enter your mind and find you a name, all right? It might twinge a bit, but I'll try not to hurt, okay? Just give me your hands."

He reluctantly did so, and I watched in quiet amazement as she closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. I would have _loved_ to have known what she was seeing inside his mind. I wondered what it looked like . . . Were there memories there, tattered bits and pieces of things the old Chev had known? Were there things just _waiting_ to be pieced back together and made into whole thoughts? There was no way of knowing unless I asked Larra, which I didn't, surprisingly. I just watched until her eyes flickered back open and a look of confusion crossed her face.

"Your name is . . . Kal." She blinked in surprise, and my eyes went wide as I nearly toppled over. "This is weird. You're getting a name after one of the best trainers in the whole galaxy."

(Since there's only one Kal that I know, I shall refer to Six-Three-Six as "Kal." Note the quotation marks? Gee, I'm so creative. Note. Sarcasm.)

"Kal" blinked slowly a few times, and I figured he was mentally trying on the name for size. It didn't sit well with me; it gave me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, and every fiber that made up my soul and memories was screeching loudly in protest. Why? Now that I can't answer.

"Uh . . . all right," "Kal" said. "Kal . . . it sounds all right."

"Man of few words," Sevvie answered dryly.

"That sounds good," I said encouragingly, even if I didn't fully believe it myself.

There was suddenly the sound of boots behind me, and I turned to see Boss return. He had a smile on his face, and I knew he'd overheard the entire naming process. He clapped "Kal" on the shoulder and grinned.

"Yep," he said. "Skirata . . . good man. You should consider yourself special to be named for him, _vod_."

"Kal" looked at him and nodded before turning and looking at Larra for a moment. I followed his gaze and found him studying her eyes. I took a glance at them and saw sadness there, and something stabbed through me. I knew how she felt, poor girl. But after a moment, he gave her a thankful smile, which she returned. And guess what I noticed. His eyes sparkled when he smiled . . . _just like Chev's had._ Creepy, huh? While I was freaking out over that, Larra looked around and nodded slowly.

"So, Corellia in a few . . . I'm going to get some rest."

She trooped off toward other side of _my_ ship where there were some bunks laid out across the wall. Boss left with her, and Sevvie returned to the cockpit. "Kal" looked a good bit . . . well, dazed. Confused. _Scared_, even. I looked up into his eyes.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked, grabbing his attention. "You don't look so good."

"Why does Larra keep looking at me like that?" he questioned. "Sevvie, too, for that matter . . . I can't get rid of this feeling that . . . I should know them. Like I should know all of you!"

I took pity on him and sat down again on "my" bench. I lightly patted the seat beside me, still watching him. I've said this a hundred times, but I'll say it again. I was no Jedi, but I could still feel his inner pain and confusion.

"Well, if it makes you feel better . . . We feel the same way about you." The words just tumbled out before I could stop them. I patted the seat again, feeling myself begin to wade into what could become dangerous waters. "Listen . . . come here and sit with me a minute. Maybe we can talk this out."

He walked over to me and sat close to me, gazing at me with creased, furrowed brows. I looked at him for one second and realized I had another longing to kiss him. Force, what was with me?! I'd never been like that in all my life, yet here I was practically ready to "get a room," as it were. I shook my head, forcing that thought from my mind, as I took a breath and squared my shoulders.

"Now . . . ever had this feeling like there are these really fuzzy memories stuck in the back of your head that you can't get out? Like you've been experiencing some sort of amnesia? It probably isn't your fault . . . But listen. Is there . . . something else you feel like you should call Larra?"

I knew, deep down, that Sevvie would _so_ kill me if he ever found out what I was doing. Larra might, as well, if she ever knew. But see, that was the beauty of my plan. I was doing this covertly, behind their back. Ooh, look at me and my bad self! "Kal" looked at me for a moment before glancing away in thought. His eyes closed, and I watched quietly in case something should happen. His brows made even deeper creases than they had before, and his grip on the bench beneath him tightened until his knuckles were deathly white and a layer of sweat had beaded across his forehead. He sat there like that for several minutes, and I was about to snap him out of it for fear of harming him when he suddenly reopened his eyes and turned to me. His breath came in hard, labored gasps, as if that one line of thought had been excruciating. I'll admit, there was this one moment that I wondered what the _fierfek_ I was doing. He took a moment to regain himself before even trying to speak.

"S—Stick . . ." he murmured as his brows knitted yet again. "That . . . that sounds even _more_ familiar; why? Why, why, _WHY_?!"

I reached over and tightly gripped his shoulder as he gave what sounded like a moan of despair. I took a breath before offering an explanation—a very vague one, I might add.

"Because . . . because it might be," I said. "We all used to know her as that. Don't hurt yourself, but . . . if you can tell me anything else . . . please do."

"We all . . . ?" He looked at me with confusion. "What . . . what do you mean? I—I don't remember . . . Augh, my head . . ."

He buried his face in his hands, groaning faintly. Not even thinking about it, I leaned over and wrapped my arms around him. It hurt me right to the core to see him in pain like that. I didn't want him to suffer. I squeezed my eyes shut, sighing heavily.

"Shh . . . It's all right," I soothed. "You won't make it better by hurting your brain. Would you rather we started with a little more recent history?"

Gently, I snapped out his backplate, revealing his Imperial-issue jumpsuit beneath. That was all I needed, because I reached in and began to slowly rub his back and shoulders. As I rubbed, I noticed how tense and hard the muscles were; he was incredibly uptight. I swear, it felt as if he was coiled up tighter than a spring. In response to my question, he sighed and nodded. As my hands ran up and down his back, he gradually loosened, relaxing a bit. I wondered how he felt inside as I sat there, fingers kneading his super-tight shoulders. And I also wondered if he was _always_ this wired. After a moment, he took a breath and glanced over his shoulder at me.

"There's . . . there's a lot I feel like I need to know . . ." he said, almost pressing.

"In time," I replied. "In time. But you just need to take it easy right now . . . I'll explain things if I can—" I almost rounded that out with "even though Sevvie really told me not to," but I caught myself and thought better of it. "But . . . if you can, can you tell me anything about how you came to be with the Empire?"

He sighed a bit, straightening. I took my hands off his back, though I didn't replace his backplate. I guess I was subconsciously hoping he'd need me to keep loosening the ol' lats.

"I've been with them as long as I can rightly remember," he began, and then he took a breath. "I remember . . . a lot of wet. And things downloaded into my head . . . and then those long, boring hours on guard duty. Force, that was dull . . . But, there was a bit of a hubbub not too long ago . . . They had caught some Rebel commandos, and I was a guard for one while she was recovering. She was really blank, but they always are after the treatment. But . . .during the night, she'd mutter names—a lot of 'em. There were some times when all she chanted was 'Chev.'" My heart skipped a beat at that, but I kept quiet as he continued. "But then they got away. I was . . . glad. I had been happy they'd gotten out . . . I don't know why."

Without thinking, I reached over and squeezed his shoulder. He was getting tense again . . . I slowly rubbed his back some more, and he exhaled, long and slow.

"I know you were glad . . . Would it help if I said that the commando you were guarding was Larra—Stick?"

He gave a start and wheeled around, his eyebrows shooting up toward the ceiling. I just sort of reached over and placed my hand on his arm. He looked at me, his eyes searching mine for a minute before he finally found his voice again.

"What? But . . ." He looked away for a moment, thinking. I knew he was thinking about when he'd guarded Larra and then about earlier when he'd met her. "It was when I first saw her . . . that's when I started getting all these . . . weird feelings, strange memories . . . Why? There's all this stuff I feel like I know, but I don't remember . . ."

"I think I may have an explanation for you," I offered, feeling the theoretical limb I was sitting on grow noticeably thinner and smaller in diameter. "But first . . . look at me and tell me if you think we've ever met before. I mean, before the prison a few hours ago."

_Please, _please_ be my Chev . . ._ I begged mentally. _Remember me . . ._

He stared at me, studying my face, studying the scar that ran jaggedly across my bottom lip and part of my chin . . . His brows knitted more than they had before, and I almost bit my lip with nervousness. But after a moment, the answer just came tumbling out of him.

"Yes . . . yes, I've met you before I saw you on _Lusankya_."

Oh, Force. I nearly tumbled off the bench, but I somehow kept myself steady. Nevertheless, I felt my face absolutely melt with relief, and I gently clasped his hands. He looked down at our intertwined gauntlets before looking up at me with question in his slightly wide eyes.

"I'd hoped you would," I admitted. "All right, now, the reason . . . Hold tight. We think you may be just like someone we used to know and that's why you're feeling like you should be remembering all these things."

He bit his lip and nodded slowly, as if preparing himself for whatever bombshell I was going to drop in his lap. I didn't want to be _too_ surprising . . . Frankly, I was planning to take this as easily as possible. I was going to be gentle, easy-going, and careful about what I was going to say. Yet even _I_ could feel the nervous anticipation practically dripping from him, and it made _me_ nervous! I took a deep breath, willing my insides to quit spawning butterflies, as I reached over and gently took both his shoulders. It was almost as if I was trying to send calmness to him.

"We think you might be having these memory things because . . . Hm, wait. You remember how I was telling you about my old friend Chevron? Well . . . we think you might've been . . . _cloned_ from him. But somehow it worked out so you got all his memories."

Here I paused, watching him. I don't know what I was expecting; maybe I was secretly hoping he'd freak completely out and I'd never hear the end of it from Sevvie and Larra. Or maybe I was praying he'd take this calmly. "Oh, okay, I'm a clone of a clone. No biggie!" Or maybe I was even begging the Force to let him be so pleased that he'd accept who and what he was and be mine again. But it wasn't just me . . . not really. I saw the sadness in Larra's eyes whenever she looked at him. But now she was asleep, so it technically _was_ just me. But as soon as I dropped this new information on his head, "Kal" blinked at me, long and slow. I wondered what his mental cogwheels were doing. I figured he was trying desperately to process what I'd just told him.

"You mean . . . _I_ am . . . a _replica_ of your friend?" he asked slowly, brows creased tightly. "And I somehow have his memories? How . . .?"

"I . . . I don't know," I said, lying through my teeth. But I desperately wanted to give him some real answers. "But it's like you're less of a 'replica' and more of _him_. Like you _are_ him . . . somehow. That's why you recognize me, even though it's fuzzy . . . why you recognize Stick. Tell me . . . don't hurt your head or anything, but . . . what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think back on memories?"

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, appearing to be thinking quite hard. He clenched his fists slightly, and I saw his back teeth grinding a bit. I almost reached out for his hand when he started speaking.

"First thing I see . . . I'm in a barracks. I'm walking in, where I see two people. They're talking, so I ignore them, until I drop the stuff in my arms . . . and then . . . I turn. They're looking at me, and one . . . one's a girl. We're talking . . . and that's as far I can get."

"Good," I said, nodding. "That was Stick. It was your first meeting with your two training mates. I won't bother asking if you know who the other was . . . but he's on this ship, too. You're doing very well with these memories, actually . . . But I'm not too surprised that you remember back that far." I gave him a small smile of encouragement. "There's nothing else?"

His eyes went dark for a moment, almost squinting, as he mulled Force knew what over in his mind. He sat there for a good five minutes before he nodded slowly.

"Erm . . . there is _something_ . . . another girl. She didn't look like the others . . . silver and black chestplate . . ."

In an unexpected twist of events, _my_ eyebrows furrowed into deep creases as I tilted my head and looked at him a bit quizzically.

"Another? But there couldn't have been—" I gasped as it clicked for me. He meant _me_. _I_ was the only one to have ever worn a silver and black chestplate, and there it was, lying in a corner. My heart skipped a beat as I took a deep breath and stood, walking to that corner and picking up my chestplate. "Was it like this?"

I took the plate to him, and he lifted it from my hands, cradling it on one forearm as he gently rubbed a hand over it. I watched him and saw the carefulness with which he stroked the plate, the . . . affection in his eyes. I wondered if that was affection for me, who had worn that plate, or just for the fragmented memory. I swallowed hard and took my seat at his side again.

"That was mine," I explained softly. "I used to wear it before I took to this one."

I lightly rapped a fist on my plate—_Chev's_ plate—while blinking faster than normal to hide the tears welling in my eyes. He reached over and gently began tracing the inverted _v_'s with his index finger, studying them with furrowed brows.

"One of me . . . one for . . . for . . . Sevvie . . ." He really seemed to be struggling, but so far he was doing well. I held my breath. "Another for . . . Stick . . . and the fourth . . . the fourth for . . . for . . ." He let out a cry of frustration. "I can't remember! I don't remember who the fourth one is!"

I chewed at my bottom lip, mentally begging him to _please_ remember. I wanted more than anything for him to remember that that fourth one was me . . . but you knew that already, so why am I even saying it again? Because it hurt that when it came to me, he drew a blank. I reached out and patted his arm.

"It's . . . it's okay," I said, again lying through my teeth, "if you don't. You don't have to push yourself too hard. But you remember Sevvie's name . . . That I'm glad of."

I really was glad that he'd remembered Sevvie, but . . . Oh well. I forced a smile at him, and he stared at me for all of one second before arching an eyebrow.

"Why're you faking that smile?" he asked. "I can tell . . ."

"I should've known," I sighed. "You were always good at knowing things like that." Realizing what I'd said, I broke off rather abruptly and shook my head. Hadn't Sevvie and Larra warned me against talking too much to him? Yet here I was, wading even deeper into dangerous waters. "It's nothing . . . not really. I'm just a bit disappointed that you didn't remember."

"Didn't remember what?" he questioned, beginning to sound more than a little irritated. "I _am_ trying here!"

"Shh, I know," I replied, trying to keep him from getting _too_ upset. I figured I had to repair my blunder before it got too serious. "It's okay. I'd just hoped you would've been able to remember what the fourth _v_ stood for. It was . . . important to you long ago."

He looked startled by my words, his dark eyes clearly showing confusion. Blunder number five hundred and eighty-four, I guess. But he didn't _just_ look confused. He looked wary as well, as if he was suddenly making himself be more careful of believing what I told him. I felt as if my chest was tightening from the anxiety rolling off him.

"What? You . . .you can't mean that . . . I have no idea, I mean . . . What are you talking about?!"

I knew I was in for it when I saw his eyes. He was becoming seriously frustrated, and his eyes were flashing with a fire I hadn't seen before. If this _was_ my Chevron, then that look in his eyes was one unfamiliar to me. I longed to ask Larra about it, but since she was asleep, that would be easier said than done. Yet I had a feeling that that burning flame in his eyes was one that few had seen. I felt my entire body go on alert, and the muscles in my legs tightened as they always did when adrenaline started pumping. I looked quickly away from him.

"I'm sorry," I murmured. "I shouldn't have gotten that ahead of you. I didn't mean to confuse you . . . or upset you . . . I guess I just got a little anxious to see what all you remember."

I risked taking a look at him, turning ever so slightly and looking at him from the corner of my eye. That _look_ was still in his eyes, and it was so unfamiliar to me that I was actually startled. The first thing that came to my mind was _"Who are you and why are you looking at me like that?" _But I kept my mouth shut and quietly watched to see if he would relax. Well, he did—a bit—for the flame in his eye burned down a little, and he took several deep breaths as he backed down. Had he been a cat, I would have seen his backbone un-arch and his fur lie flat. It was sort of like that, I guess, except his shoulders slouched a faint bit and his eyes went gentler.

"Sorry," he apologized. "There've been other times when I've tried to remember . . . I feel like there's someone—or some_thing_—I couldn't forget . . . but I did."

He looked so pained that I felt terrible for him. Whatever the Empire had done to him had made him something different. They had forced him to be a man with broken memories and no real life, no real name. Oh, listen to me talk. I'm acting as if he really was Chev. But . . . then again . . . what that captain's data entries had said . . . I was beginning to believe more and more that he really _was_.

"It's okay," I assured him. "You've been through a lot. I think . . . maybe some sleep would do you good. Both of us. Okay with you? Maybe we can talk again after we've had a while to rest."

He looked actually _grateful_ as he nodded slowly and slouched off to find some place to stretch out. He found himself a rather cozy little corner beside the hatch that would become the loading ramp when we landed on Corellia. I watched as he crossed his arms over his chest, and I waited for a moment to see if he would doze off. Well, he didn't seem like he was planning on it. His brows were furrowed, so it seemed to me that he was just going to sit there and wrack his brain until something came out. I sighed then inhaled a bit and nearly gagged as I realized that a shower would do more for me than sleep would. So, casting one last long look at him, I crept off to the 'fresher.

Let me tell you, a hot shower after who knows how long of wearing the same ol' armor was a welcomed blessing. I must've just stood there under the cascades of water for ten, maybe twenty minutes, just enjoying the warmth. I let the water wash the dried blood off my side before even daring to reach for the soap. But as I soaped up, it soon occurred to me that the shower water wasn't the only water splashing against me. I was standing there, covered from neck to toe in soapy bubbles, and _crying_. I guess I'd been bottling it up for so long that I couldn't stand it any longer. I wanted him to remember _me_. Oh, sure, remembering Larra and Sevvie was all fine and dandy, but what was Chev if he didn't know who I was, if he didn't recognize the importance of the fourth _v_? It hurt to know that I could be possibly shut out from his memories for the rest of his life, and in the back of my mind, I swore to get even with those who'd taken him away from me again. That Captain Brogan, who'd seemed so certain that his charge would enjoy having his way with me, would be first if _I_ had anything to say about it. But I couldn't worry about that just then. Right then, the most pressing matter was getting that tracker chip disabled, and we'd be at Corellia in a few more hours.

I sighed, not wanting to leave the warmth of my shower. But I knew the water holding tank in the engine room didn't have _that_ much on reserve, especially if the others wanted baths, too. So I reluctantly rinsed the soap off before shutting off the water and toweling off. And instead of putting my armor back on (since I'd decided to clean it up and patch all the holes later), I threw on a pair of trousers and a dark green tunic that I'd nabbed from my knapsack. It felt _very_ good to be in something less constricting, and I allowed myself a sigh as I ran a comb through my damp hair and threaded my tiny gold hoops through my upper ears. Once I was finished, I went back to the main hold, but as soon as I caught sight of "Kal," my chest went tight. I wanted desperately to curl up in a quiet corner and just cry, but I managed to hold it in. I just lay down quietly on "my" bench, facing the wall, and as soon as I was down, a few teardrops rolled down my face. I reached up to brush them away but gave that up when I realized I couldn't stop myself. So I just closed my eyes and lay there, feeling the warm tears seeping out from between my eyelashes. But before too long, I was sound asleep.


	8. Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

**Chapter Seven – Good Things Come to Those Who Wait**

As I slept, I dreamed. I hadn't dreamed since before I ended up in that awful cell onboard _Lusankya_. Normally, it would have been those frustratingly repetitive dreams of Geonosis, but this time, it was something entirely different but just as awful. This time, it was of "Kal." He was in a dark, metal room, and he was . . . dying. But it wasn't an ordinary death, such as what would happen if he were mortally wounded. And he wasn't even "Kal." It was _Chevron_ this time, but it was this "new" one . . . I knew it was he because I saw that familiar chestplate. And in that metal room, I heard familiar raspy breathing before the gleaming red blade of a lightsaber came plunging through the air and through his heart. His knees went weak, and he slid sideways with a strangled cry of pain . . . _I_ nearly woke up screaming.

It was very short; only a few seconds. It was more of a flash than anything . . . like a vision. But it still frightened me more than the threat of _Lusankya_ ever had. I was completely unaware of everything around me except that I was now sitting bolt upright, one hand clutching my own chest as I gasped with horror. I couldn't believe what I'd just seen. Was I so close to getting him back, only to have him stolen from me like that? I felt cold sweat trickle down the back of my neck, and I quickly reached up to brush it off my forehead as it beaded there, too. What was it in this galaxy that insisted that I never sleep well?! I was so startled that it was all I could do to draw my knees into my chest and curl up in my corner with a horrified whisper of "Oh, gods, _no_." Across the way, I saw "Kal" start a bit and glance at me, but I ignored his gaze until he went back to thinking. I must've huddled there in my corner for an hour, maybe more, but eventually Larra came shuffling tiredly from wherever she'd gone. She looked like she was on her way to the galley for a bite to eat, but when she caught sight of me, she stopped. I must've looked a sight with my red, tear-stained face and bloodshot eyes. She wandered over to me and sat down by my side, asking me if I was all right. I just nodded quickly, wiping my face with the long, loose sleeve of my tunic. But I think she could tell I was lying, because eventually I just babbled out the whole dream, ending with a sharp inhale and a sniffle. Larra looked thoughtful for a moment before she looked flat-out surprised. She crept closer to me, wrapping a comforting arm around my shoulder.

"Don't tell me . . . I went off broadcasting my dream, didn't I?"

_Her_ dream? You mean it wasn't mine to begin with? Then if _she_ had it and I did as well . . . I shuddered to think of what that meant. But I nodded a little hesitantly, not fully understanding what broadcasting one's dream would have on the future. I sighed as I rubbed my face with my hands.

"Yeah . . . yeah, you did . . ." I admitted. "Don't worry. I'll be okay. I just have to do everything I can to keep it from happening." My voice dropped to a whisper as I looked at her for a moment. "I can't lose him again."

"I can't either," Larra replied. "You know what happened last time . . . I couldn't go through it again."

We kept discussing this dream, and we didn't even notice that in his corner, "Kal" had heard us. We didn't see the way his eyes locked onto one point directly in front of us; we didn't see how his eyes widened and how his breathing sped up. He seemed as if he was watching something creep dangerously close to him, and he skittered backwards only to find he had nowhere else to go. There was sweat rolling down his skin as he curled up in a helpless ball.

And then we heard the scream.

It was a blood-curdling scream of agony, and it was so high-pitched and hair-raising that Larra and I jumped. My heart was pounding as my ears traced the sound and I dashed around the corner to find him there, breathing laboriously and clutching his head and . . . his heart. I felt my own heart skip a couple of beats as I realized _why_ he had screamed and _why_ he was holding his heart.

He knew.

I sank to my knees at his side, instinctively throwing my arms around him. He was trembling unlike ever before; this was a fear I had neither experienced nor seen anyone else experience before. But I guess seeing your own death in your mind is more than a little terrifying.

"Shh, it's okay," I whispered, trying to soothe him. "It's okay . . ."

I exhaled heavily and cradled his dark head against my shoulder, grateful I'd showered. I sighed as I held him and he clung to me, and I squeezed my eyes shut against what I _knew_ he'd seen. In my mind, I saw it as the awful dreams I always had. I knew he saw it as it actually happened—first person. He looked up at me, still trembling, but not as violently anymore.

"I . . . I died . . ." he breathed, almost in disbelief. "I remember . . . I was dead . . ."

He shuddered in horror, and I gently stroked his hair, not saying a word. Larra crouched down beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"But you're not now," she said. "You've got another chance . . . We can't let you lose that chance. Not now, not ever."

I nodded in fierce agreement; no one was taking him from me again! I gazed at him, longing to just reach out and touch my hands to his face. But if he still didn't remember me, then that might turn out to be rather embarrassing, so I refrained. I just nodded decisively.

"And I won't lose you," I declared. "Nobody will take you away again . . . I'll make sure of it even if I have to go to the ends of the galaxy!"

Insert a swell of rapturous music here. I hadn't intended for that to sound like an ultimatum, but it came tumbling out like that. I almost felt ashamed for that sudden burst of emotional decisiveness, but I was serious. Even if he never remembered me, I would do everything in my power to keep him safe because _I_ remembered _him_. (You're probably thinking "Well, _duh_. Of _course_ you remember him!" But just shush, okay?) After I gave that little speech, I sighed heavily. Boy, did I want things to be normal again. But then, what _was_ "normal"? When was the last time my life had been even _close_ to "normal"? In maybe, I dunno, ten years? Twenty? Could it really be that my life hadn't been "normal" since I was _five_? I sighed, thinking about this, and "Kal" looked up at me and Larra. He studied her first then turned to me, and I looked at him, as well. And I noticed that his eyes had lit up. They were practically _glowing_, and I felt my stomach flip. His smile started in his dark brown eyes before spreading down to his mouth, and he reached out to gently touch my chin.

"Rogue . . ." he whispered, and I felt my breath catch. I nearly fainted. "_Cyar'ika_ . . ."

You know, even though I'd wanted that to happen, I'd never in my wildest dreams expected it to. That's why, when I heard that pet name, I couldn't stop the tears that welled up in my eyes from streaming down my cheeks. And I couldn't help myself as I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his neck. My Chevron had come back to me; it was like a miracle, and I silently thanked the Force for it as I cradled the back of his head in my palm, lacing my fingers through his hair.

"Chev . . ." I sighed. "Oh, Chev, I've missed you so . . . and now you remember me, too . . ."

My throat tightened considerably, and I had to stifle a sob to keep from seeming too much like an over-emotional little sap. Chevron stiffened a bit at my initial embrace, but he relaxed and held me close, nestling his face in my almost-dry hair for a little while. I felt warm teardrops splash on my neck, and that only made me hug him tighter. At that moment, I just wanted to hug him for hours and stay right there. I didn't want to let him go, and maybe that was because I was inwardly afraid that if I released him, I'd lose him again. He gently pressed my head to his armored shoulder, stroking my hair, and I felt as if I'd just explode from the happiness I felt. Behind us, Larra smiled at us before reaching over and rubbing the top of his head so that the already short hair stood up something like grass.

"Good to see you, too, _vod_," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, but I could tell that she was on the verge of tears herself.

I clung to Chev for a little longer before I finally pulled away, a wide grin on my face. I couldn't say anything; I was too choked up. So I just smiled and cupped his jaw in my hand. We sort of helped each other to our feet just as Boss and the other Delta boys raced in, looking concerned. I couldn't help but stifle a laugh as I saw that Sev had his sniper rifle slung over one shoulder. I don't know what he was expecting, but he was certainly prepared for it. In fact, they all looked completely wired from adrenaline. I sighed. Typical commandos.

"What's going on?" Boss asked. "We heard a scream . . ."

"It's okay," I assured them. "Just the . . . final piece in a very big puzzle, you might say."

"That means he remembered!" Scorch cried, beaming happily.

Chev blinked in a bit of surprise, and I looked up at him, wondering what that meant. He lifted a hand, index finger hovering out in the air as he slowly pointed at each of the Deltas. Had he been closer to them, his finger would have been floating right in front of their noses.

"Scorch . . . Sev . . . Fixer . . . Ace . . . I don't believe it!"

_Believe it, _Chev'ikaI thought with a grin.

He smiled broadly at them, and Scorch gave a joyful holler as he smacked hands with each of his brothers. The ship had gone absolutely nuts with joy, and there was a fair bit of happy laughter before Sevvie finally sauntered in to see what the ruckus was. He looked around a bit, seeming slightly confused, before it occurred to him what was going on. And when it did, a grin the size of Coruscant situated itself on his face, and I realized it'd been years since I'd seen him smile.

"CHEV!!" he shouted before making a dive for his brother.

Well, one ex-ARC is as big and strong as another, so Sevvie took Chevron to the ground with his flying attack of brotherly love, and they went down laughing. I looked over at Larra; she was wiping tears from her eyes but was also trying not to show it. I just reached over and patted her shoulder, offering a smile. I knew how much this meant. Chev hadn't seen Sevvie since, well, before Sevvie flipped out.

"I'd thought those stupid med people would kill you!" Chev cried.

"Nah, they just kicked me out," Sevvie replied with a shrug.

They clapped each other—quite hard, I might add—on the shoulder as they clambered to their feet, chuckling. I smiled and looked around at everyone, feeling that _this_ was my family, not that rodent who'd shot me. The Deltas were _ner vode_, Larra was _ner vod_, and Chev was _ner cyar'ika_. I still had a chance at winning Sevvie to _ner vod_ status, if I could only get him to trust me again . . . But I wondered if things would change now that Chev was back. I wiped tears from my eyes as I smiled at everyone.

"I'll admit, this is probably the happiest day of my life," I sighed contentedly, but then I remembered the chestplate which was no longer mine and for which I no longer had a need or a use. So I darted off to where I'd left my armor, snapped the plate out, and brought it back. When I showed it to Chev, he actually took it from my hands and snapped it into his armor—lightsaber hole and all. I stared a bit then almost began crying. And you know what? I completely forgot about his chip and the Imps that would no doubt bring up our ion engine. "I say when we hit Corellia, we go celebrate!"

"Here, here!" Sev cheered.

The rest of the group seemed excited about celebrating, but Scorch's face fell a bit. I learned later that it was because years ago, Larra had put a strict alcohol-free law on him. Apparently he'd gotten drunk and had a nasty hangover, so she kept him dry. But since this was a special occasion, Larra released him from his probation of sorts and informed him that as long as he didn't over-drink. He quickly swore to "be good," as it were, and we all shared a laugh before I realized something I'd promised them years before during one of the meals we shared in the Kaminoan mess hall.

"I think I can go one better," I said, tilting my head. "Years ago, I promised to buy you all steaks . . . I think it's time I made good on that, wouldn't you say? It wouldn't do to run around breaking promises left and right."

Larra, Sevvie, and Chev whooped delightedly, and for a moment, I was taken back to the days when they were all ARCs in training and I was just the clone host's cocky daughter. Chev received another hard but affectionate head rub from Larra, and he grinned. Of course, as happy as I was for them to be reunited, _I_ was entitled to a little affection myself. So I crossed the hold to Chev and gently pulled him off to the side.

"Excuse me, folks," I said, and there were a few muffled snickers as Chev lifted his eyebrows in that adorable fashion he had, "this one's mine."

With that, I grinned at him before cupping his face in my hands and pulling him in for a nice, long kiss. Oh, Force, do I even need to tell you how good that felt?! It was my first kiss in eight years, and goodness gracious . . . Absently, I heard Sev snigger at me and Chev; apparently times hadn't changed much. I felt Chev sigh as he wrapped his arms around my waist; he didn't care that the others were watching, and neither did I! I think he was just grateful that he could remember how to do this. I heard a breath of air, then a muffled "Mmph!" so I was certain Larra had clapped a hand over Sevvie's mouth.

"Mm . . ." I said softly when Chev and I separated a few moments later. "Now _that_ was worth waiting eight years for."

There was a collective chuckle from the others, and just then, as if by magic, my little freighter lurched a bit as we came out of hyperspace (on auto-pilot, of course) and swooped down toward Coronet. Boss went to the window and peered out before giving a low whistle of pleasure.

"Now isn't that just the prettiest sight?" he asked, meaning the glittering city lights.

"Uh, we've been here before," Scorch informed him.

"But never in this good a mood!" came Boss's cheerful reply.

"No kidding," Larra sighed, and she drove an elbow into Sevvie's gut as he stifled a snicker. Chevron looked plumb confused, and I made a mental note to ask Larra about it later.

Not too long later, we landed in the bustling heart of Coronet, and I felt a wave of excitement wash through me as I looked out and saw all the people and activity. Oh, sure, this may have been the place where I learned a very painful lesson at the hands (err, lightsaber) of one Obi-Wan Kenobi, but it was also as "home" to me as anything. I'd spent a lot of time there during my stint of "working" for the Empire. (And we all know that my working for them is what landed me in the heap of trouble known as _Lusankya_ in the first place. Sheer irony, that.) The loading ramp of the ship extended, and I motioned toward it, a grin on my face.

"Well, come on, gang!" I called, standing aside. "A little slice of paradise known as Treasure Ship Row awaits!"

With a regular war whoop, the Deltas thundered past me and down the ramp, acting exactly like little boys who were visiting a big city for the first time. I laughed before turning and lifting an eyebrow at Larra.

"I hope they're not always like that," I chuckled.

"Trust me," she sighed, "they are."

"Ah, Coruscant's better," Sevvie stated after looking outside, but he nevertheless went charging out.

"Hey, Deltas, no leavin' your favorite ARCs!" Chevron called as he raced out after them.

He darted off, and Larra fired off after him as I stood there, amazed at the speed. Sevvie just sighed, tossed me a shrug and followed his family. I followed after a moment, catching up in time to hear Scorch make a joke about Chev's "favorite ARCs" comment.

"Favorite?" he scoffed playfully. "Please . . . we just tolerate you because you're the only ones we know!"

Boss thumped him across the back of the head, but Scorch snorted with laughter anyway. I stifled a laugh of my own as I came to Chev's side and eased my hand into his. He turned and looked at me, and I knew our escape from _Lusankya_ had come to his mind, because he looked down at our locked hands. I figured that he was remembering how I'd grabbed his hand on our way out; I knew I was. I just beamed at him before leading the group up to the wide array of clubs on Treasure Ship Row. I chose the first high-class club we saw. Heck, anything with soft, crimson carpet, gold wallpaper, and crystal chandeliers was getting a plus sign next to its name in my book. I led the others inside and took a look around, feeling quite pleased with the surroundings. This was, quite frankly, _the_ nicest club I'd _ever_ been in. I nodded to myself, but then I noticed that the Deltas were staring around at the place, their eyes as wide as saucers. Of course, they were trying to be as inconspicuous (as if time- and war-battered GAR commando armor was inconspicuous!) as they could, but their shock was still all too evident.

"What's the matter, boys?" I asked them, trying to hide my smile. "Never met high-class society?"

"Did you mean up-close-and-personal or reading about it in travel holomags?" Scorch replied, his eyes fixed on the huge chandelier that was hanging from the center of the vaulted ceiling.

All Larra could manage was a surprised "Whoa," and Sevvie looked as if he was on the verge of fainting. I wondered if I could find a fancier club because part of me _really_ wanted to see him faint. That would have been something entirely new. Chev shook his head and gave a low whistle of amazement at the luxury of the club.

"If they make uj cake here," he stated, "I will have died and gone to heaven . . ."

I stiffened a bit, looking at him as I unconsciously tightened my grip on his hand. Force knew I hated anything that mentioned death and him in the same sentence. And yes, this little thing became a huge pet peeve of mine; I warn you now.

"No better metaphor you could use, huh?" I asked him.

He gave me an apologetic smile, and I couldn't help but grin. He always did look cute when he smiled, and now I had that smile aaaaall to myself. After a moment, a well-dressed waiter appeared and led us all to a large corner table. He didn't even seem to care that eight out of nine of us were in armor, lacking only helmets. I was the only one who looked normal (per se), but that didn't seem to matter. I noticed that we were still treated respectfully, and while part of me wanted to just relax and enjoy that luxury, the other part wanted to throw the waiter against the wall and ask him what the Empire was paying him to be nice to us. Chev must've noticed my sudden uptightness, because he reached over and squeezed my hand. I smiled, forcing myself to chill out, as we all buried our noses in our menus. I saw a wide variety of steaks to choose from, and I nearly fainted at all the decisions I'd have to make. Nearby, Sev cleared his throat a bit when he took a glance at the desert section.

"I think we'd better get a coffin . . ." he said, chuckling a bit.

I shot him a "death ray" glare, thinking about my pet peeve. Fixer noticed it and leaned across the table to his brother.

"Want to take that back?" he asked. "You happen to be seated next to a sensitive woman with the power to kill you."

Sev looked at him, eyebrows furrowed, before taking a look around the room.

"Where?"

Scorch burst out laughing, and though it really was funny, I narrowed my eyes dangerously. Of course, I wasn't _really_ intending to kill anyone at the dinner table. I wasn't so easily peeved that I was about to slit his throat. Besides, he was my brother, too. The only brother I'd ever kill would probably be the traitorous one. Across the way, Larra laughed before she, Sevvie, and Chev scanned their menus. The three of them exchanged one sneaky little glance before laying the menus down in one synchronized motion.

"Ten creds says it's steaks all the way around," Boss observed.

"You took the words right out of my mouth," I laughed.

"Make mine medium-rare!" came Scorch's exuberant exclamation.

"Tell the waiter," Sev snorted.

"You guys just need to slow down a bit," Fixer advised. "You're getting so far ahead of yourselves that I see indigestion in your insanely near futures!"

We shared a laugh over that, and after another minute, the waiter returned to our side, notepad in hand. The Deltas and I quickly put in our orders, and Boss surprised us by breaking away from the string of medium-rare requests (Sev had _rare_) by asking for well-done. That almost got a laughing tease out of Scorch, but Chev stepped in and shut him up. Once we were got that business out of the way, we all turned and looked to our ARC pals. This was beginning to be just like old times.

"And we shall see just how much blood they like left in their meat," Scorch mused. Goodness, he had become more of a joker than he'd ever been! Sev lifted an eyebrow at him.

"Hey, I got mine rare!" Sev exclaimed. "What more do you want? Still on the nerf?!"

There was a wave of snickers around the table, and even I had to admit that that was a funny mental image as I took a careful sip from my water glass. Larra looked to her brothers, smirking a bit.

"Well, not only that . . ." she began.

"We've also got another idea up our collective sleeve," Sevvie chuckled.

"But it'll wait until after," Chev informed us as I opened my mouth to question.

They called the waiter over to them and ordered their steaks before pointing at the menu and doing a little bit of whispering. The waiter nodded before double-checking our orders and dashing off to the kitchen. I folded my hands and rested my chin on them, gazing at the mischievous trio seated across from me.

"Ohh, I should've _known_ you all would come up with a little trick of some sort," I said.

"Can they help it, being so recently reunited?" Boss asked me in that almost fatherly way he had. I knew that being a near father to the rest of his squad was something he'd picked up off the one and only Kal Skirata.

"No, guess not," I answered, looking at Chev with a warm smile.

He returned that smile as one corner of his mouth quirked upward, and Sevvie actually _laughed_. I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard a laugh that hearty come out of him. But it made me feel very good that we were all together at last and that we were completely carefree. (And don't you dare mention Chev's chip, or I'll slug you one! No sense in ruining a perfectly good party!)

"Ooh, just you see!" he chuckled.

Larra beamed at us all before settling back and folding her hands across her stomach. We had a bit of conversation while waiting on our dinner, and most of it was laughing over the "old times" in the _kaminii_ mess hall. It was better than ever before this time in that we now had Chev with us again, so he could put his in his point of view on things. Of course, the Deltas wouldn't let the evening pass without mentioning our previously secret romance at least a dozen times, so we laughed over that a little bit. Most of the entertainment was in thinking back to how Chev and I had turned Larra loose on Scorch, nearly scaring the _osik_ out of him. But the whole time, Chev kept shooting me pointed glances across the table, and I kept returning them with a slightly raised brow that meant "Wait." I knew what he was thinking about, and I'll just say this: it involved the two of us in a locked, dark cargo hold. I made a mental note to get his chip taken care of, take us all home to Mandalore, and _then_ get married. Then we wouldn't need to sneak around in search of privacy. Mwaha, talk about a good plan. So yep, the happy, fluffy little dreams were back and in full force.

A little while later, the warm, meaty scent of freshly-cooked steaks wafted through the club to our table, and I tell you, every backbone at that table went as straight as a board. All eyes turned to look for our waiter and the tray that no doubt bore our long-awaited steak dinners. I don't think any of us found it easy to hide our grins of glee as the food was placed before us and we dug in. All around me, there were faint moans of happiness, so I decided to see if these steaks were as good as the groans were implying. Let me put it to you this way: they were. I sighed happily as I chewed. It was absolutely _perfect_.

"Somehow, I'm glad I had to wait eight years for this thing," I said. "Good Force . . ."

Chev stared at his steak for a while before diving at it and devouring it in record time. He must have been completely starving; it made me wonder just what they fed him at the Imperial garrisons. They couldn't have fed him well . . . I felt a pang of pity, but then I watched Sevvie wolf down his steak at an equally fast speed. Larra followed shortly after, trying to be slower about it . . . but not by much. Not too long afterward, the Deltas and I finished our dinners, too, and the waiter returned to collect our empty plates. Larra looked up at him.

"We'd like what we ordered come on out, please," she said.

"Of course," the waiter replied with a nod, "right away."

He dashed away to the kitchen, and I looked up, my left eyebrow twitching a bit between normal resting position and a full-fledged arch.

"Okay, okay, secrets," I said with an almost impatient sigh. "You know you're killing me with the suspense!"

"That's their plan," Sev said, and I let my brow have its all-out arch.

"To kill me?" I scoffed. "Please."

"Nah, to get you all hyped up," came his reply. He smirked at Larra, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"It'd just better be good!" Scorch exclaimed, and Boss chuckled.

"You and your lust for thrills."

Scorch just beamed innocently, and I could've sworn I saw a little golden halo pop up over his head. Larra, meanwhile, shot a glance to the kitchen doors just as the waiter returned, bringing with him a . . . huge, steaming, fresh-from-the-oven _uj cake_ for all of us! When the cake came to rest on our table, Larra raised her glass.

"To having Chevron back!" she sang, seeming happier than I'd ever seen her.

"Here, here!" Sevvie agreed.

Chev beamed as he went after the cake.

"_K'oyacyi, vod!_"

I couldn't help but squeal with delight as I eyed that warm, golden-brown cake before looking up and at the others.

"I'll toast to that!" I said, even though I didn't have anything to toast _with_. But then I turned my attention back to the cake, sighing happily. "Oh, if that ain't the prettiest cake you ever saw . . ."

Scorch nodded in agreement.

"And we haven't had any in . . ."

"Years," Boss helped. Scorch nodded emphatically.

"In years!"

We all snickered at that as Larra helped me dish up huge slices of the stuff, and Sevvie passed them around the table. I noticed that Chev's slice was a bit larger than all the rest of ours', but I didn't really mind. After all, this was celebrating _him_. He took a large forkful, and the look that crossed his face was one of pure bliss. He practically moaned with happiness at the sweet, syrupy perfection. (Oh, frack, now I'm making myself hungry!)

"Ooooooohhhhhh . . ." he sighed. "Soooo goooooooood . . ."

"Took the words right outta my mouth!" Larra agreed.

And what did I do? Why, I settled back with a mouthful of warm cake and let it melt on my tongue, of course! I had to work really hard to stifle the happy moan that was just itching to get out of me, but it eventually slipped out anyway. Of course, I wasn't alone in my bliss. Everybody else had these dreamy expressions on their faces.

"This takes me back," I sighed.

"How far?" Scorch asked me.

"To when I was six." Despite the joy of the cake and having Chev back, thinking back to that age left me with a pang of sadness. That was when I had met _Jang'buir_ . . . I almost couldn't believe that I still missed him so.

"Long time ago," Fixer said.

"Yeah . . ." I agreed. "Good times, though . . ."

"Me," Larra said reminiscently, "all the way back to when I was five . . . Ah, those were the days . . . first time I met _Kal'buir_, too . . ."

"Oh, yes," Sev nodded slowly. "I think I remember that."

"We had a different nickname for you then," Boss added.

"What, she's been through _more_ nicknames?!" I exclaimed in between bites of still-warm cake. "How many?"

"Well, let me see . . ." Fixer said, and it seemed as if he was doing a bit of mental calculation. "Four, I think."

Four . . . Whoever needed _four_ nicknames?! I almost fell out of my chair.

"Mm," Sev said thoughtfully. "And back then, _I_ first called her 'Tiger' because she was pretty darn tough for somebody as small as her."

I looked quickly at Larra. Somehow, I couldn't see her, a woman who was nearly an inch taller than her brethren—her husband, especially—as a tiny, defenseless five-year-old kid called Tiger. No doubt she wore the ol' black 'n navy then . . . except in a smaller size. Heh.

"You just like gloating because _you_ gave her that name," Boss said to Sev, who smirked.

"Yep."

Larra's eyebrow went up just a little bit before she frowned, looking as if she was racking her brain a bit.

"Okay, that's another something I totally don't remember . . ."

_Drat you, _LusankyaI thought bitterly.

"Well, my memory's still a little fuzzy," Boss said with a sigh, "but I remember pulling you out from under a big pile of other trainees."

"And Sev pounded a few into the ground before we took you to Kal," Scorch added.

"We wouldn't have taken you except you were hurt," Fixer explained. "You had a disjointed shoulder, if I recall."

"Oh, ouch," I winced. "You sure you're not making this up?"

"Nah, because we were all impressed by her, I think," Sev said with slightly furrowed brows. "_And_ we'd never seen a girl before."

"You all remember how Scorch made friends right off?" Boss asked with a twinkling eye. "You'd think he was goin' for somethin' even back then."

He chuckled a bit, winking first at Scorch then at Larra, and I remembered the wedding rings I'd seen on their hands back on Kamino. It filled me with something of a warm, fuzzy feeling, because I knew that soon, Chev and I would have that, too. Across the table, Larra's brows furrowed before she arched one.

"Waitaminnit . . ." she said, shaking her index finger a bit. "That was when I decided to get back at my training group, wasn't it?"

"Your training group beat up on you?" Sevvie asked, amazed. "Why?"

"Dude, _look_ at her," Chev replied, jabbing a thumb at Larra's figure, which, even beneath the armor, was _definitely_ different than his. "Obviously."

"Oh . . ."

_They call those 'sexist pigs,'_ I wanted to say.

"Yeah, those miniature chauvinists," Scorch grumbled. "Makes my blood boil just to think about it."

"Oh, I don't think _anything_ could make _your_ blood boil while your stomach's full of that cake," Sev chuckled, reaching for seconds.

"So how'd she get to be called 'Tiger'?" I asked.

"When we took her to Kal," Fixer explained to me, "he did a little arguing and was allowed to keep her out of her group for a day. We slept in this little nest of blankets . . . Cute."

"And _soft_," Scorch sighed. "Very."

"Well, you'd be the one to judge that," Boss muttered. I laughed.

"_Anyway_," Sev continued, picking up where Fixer had left off. "I told her she'd been like a little tiger, trying to fight back. But 'course, she'd never seen one, so I had to explain . . ."

"You and me both," Scorch agreed with a nod. "And we asked if she'd like to be named that."

"And I'm going out on a limb by saying she accepted," I said, hopefully rounding out the story.

"Nice strong limb you've got there," Boss chuckled.

Larra nodded slowly, lightly pressing her index fingers against each other. She was silent for several minutes as she thought back on this previously shadowy part of her past. She nodded once in a rather decisive manner.

"I remember . . . Zero-G tag. Aw, that was awesome . . . and then I went flying at one of those _chakaare_ and gave him a one-for he never forgot! Ohh, that felt _good_!"

"The first victim?" Sevvie asked, and she chuckled darkly.

"Oh, yeah."

I gulped a bit. The word "victim" made her sound like a vampire or something. It sort of made me a little jittery, considering how I'd practically been one of her "victims" the first time we fought. Sev looked incredulous.

"What, have you forgotten the damage she can dish out?!" he exclaimed, almost gasping.

"Uh, no," I said, running a finger over the scar on my chin. "Not in the least."

I grinned a bit sheepishly as Larra chuckled, mostly to herself. She smirked at the memory of the fight, and I wished I could've seen it . . .

"Well, considering I wasn't a big, bad ARC yet," Larra said, "it could've been worse for him . . ."

"Somehow I'm grateful he met you _then_," I replied, "except it would've been a show had he tangled with you when you learned that uppercut! Whew . . ."

At that, Larra almost laughed, and I reached for another forkful of cake before noticing that Boss had almost completely frozen in a straight, motionless posture. His eyes were fixated on the club's door, and his jaw was set tightly. I tilted my head and looked at him.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Got company," he replied, nodding at the door.

I turned, looked, and nearly jumped out of my skin as I saw a group of Stormtroopers and a cocky-looking captain enter the club. It was all I could do to stifle my cry of dismay. How _dare_ they come in and crash our party! You see, I _knew_ they were after us, because as soon as the captain's gaze locked onto Chev, he smiled a slow, predatory smile that sent awful shivers down my spine. Something in my mind whispered _"Chip,"_ but in my fear, I didn't understand. All I knew was that that captain was coming closer and that he had his eyes on Chevron like a wild animal looks at prey. And that was when I realized that this wasn't just _any_ captain. This was the Captain Brogan from the datapad, and he was coming for his charge.


	9. Running Away is Hard to Do

**Chapter Eight – Running Away is Hard to Do**

I almost literally couldn't breathe for a minute as I stared hard at Captain Brogan. How _dare_ he come in and ruin such a happy occasion! Hello, evil desires to choke the life from him. Scorch pursed his lips and took one look at the "dear captain" (yeah, _right_!) before muttering one word.

"Frack."

Despite that severe understatement, that was the word that was in all our minds, mine especially. I had _not_ gotten my Chevron back only to lose him again! I wasn't about to allow him to be torn from my grasp by those bloodsuckers better known as Imperials. I was _not_ about to take this lying down. Beside me, Sev snorted.

"You swiped the word right out of my mouth."

"This is bad," I said quickly, ignoring my own use of understatement, "very bad."

All our eyes were locked on Brogan, and almost as soon as he'd walked in, Chev had reached over and clamped a hand on his right forearm. He went pale as he clutched his arm, and his lips disappeared into a thin line.

"They must've . . . _Haar'chak_ . . ." He looked at me, eyes fearful. "Rogue, we forgot to go deactivate it!"

"Deactivate what?" Larra asked.

"Tracking chip," Chev sighed, and Larra's mouth formed a loose _o_.

"That sure complicates things . . ."

"Oh, _osik_!" I swore. "I guess I got so excited about having you back that it completely slipped my mind!"

"So we make a run for it?" Fixer asked, half-rising from his seat.

"If we run, they'll see us, and we'll all be one very big pile of ash," I reasoned. "If we _don't_ run, they might not see us and we can slip out the back."

"Is that possible?" Boss didn't seem as if he thought it was.

"Oh, who knows?" I replied with an over-exaggerated shrug. "For all I know, Boba might be behind them, too!"

Now he was the _last_ person I wanted to see—after Vader, Isard, and this Brogan character. But I couldn't help but wonder if he _would_ be behind them. What if the Empire had contracted him out again to track us down and kill us all? Well, this may come as a surprise, but I'd undergone a complete three-sixty within the past couple of days—the past few hours, especially. I rather liked my life again; no way was I going down without a fight! Heck, if I had my way, I wouldn't go down, period! Larra growled beneath her breath, eyeing the Stormtroopers.

"Or Ordo," she muttered, confusing me.

"Who?" I asked with furrowed eyebrows. Boss explained for me.

"Big ARC who's working for the Imps. He leads those pathetic troopers around all day broadcasting Imp propaganda."

In the back of my mind, I remembered that Stormtrooper captain I'd seen at the Imperial Palace before this entire mess got started. He'd looked exactly like most of the old ARCs had, and I felt a pang of grief. Poor guy, working for the Empire . . . With places like _Lusankya_ hanging around, there was no doubt in my mind that he wasn't doing it willingly. Sev cleared his throat, getting my attention.

"If we're gonna run for it, we'd better," he said.

"I'll take your call," I nodded. "I'm better at running than sticking around. Any ARC input?"

I twitched a bit, feeling my muscles tighten even more. I looked around and found that Chev's face was tight, emotionless, and . . . angry. His eyes were narrow, and Sevvie clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"I think Chev wants to give them a little notice," he said, and Larra nodded emphatically.

"And I'll be right there with him!"

"So we're staying," I said, nodding slowly. "I'll stand, too."

I had to literally force myself to stay there at Chev's side while the rest of me was screaming with an irrepressible urge to just get up and _run_. Yet I couldn't go and leave these guys behind; no way was I going to go turncoat on them. I clenched the edges of my seat so hard that my knuckles turned white, and adrenaline started pumping through my system.

_I will _not_ go back!_ I thought as Brogan came closer. _I won't let you take him, either!_

As we sat there, all of us tensed and ready to go at a moment's notice, Brogan wandered over, his hands resting on his belt. He looked at us for a moment before allowing himself a cruel smile.

"You all, the refugees, are now under arrest," he said smoothly. This was one guy who would look good with a black eye, I mused.

"You try anything and it'll be the last move you make."

I clenched my fist a bit. Despite not being in my armor, I had my knife and sheath strapped to my forearm beneath my tunic's sleeve. One wrong move, and this guy would be sliced into Imperial jerky—emphasis on _jerk_. Nearby, Sevvie and Chevron lifted their fists, and from the corner of my eye, I could see the Deltas reaching for their pistols. Out of the other eye, I saw Larra wrench her twin lightsabers free of her armor and clutch them loosely at her sides. Chev glared _hard_ at Brogan.

"You can track me, but I am _never_ going back," he snarled. "Not even if you dump me into one of those treatment rooms!"

"And if you try," Larra added, "you'll have to go through us."

"And," I said, "if, by some twist of fate, you make it through _them_, then you'll have one heck of a time getting through _me_."

Brogan looked me over and smirked, as if amused by my presence. I felt my eyes narrow as my cheeks grew red with a hot flush of anger. This guy had "Slit my Adam's apple, pretty please" written _aaaaall_ over him.

"Ah, yes," he sneered. "Rogue Fett, the turncoat. You abandoned such a promising career with the Empire for these ragtag nobodies."

"Promising," my _shebs_! Murdering Jedi and Republic officials was _not_ my definition of "promising." My eyes flashed and I stood slowly, trying not to draw too much attention as I walked over to Brogan and shoved my fist up under his chin. One twist of my wrist, and he'd have the blade of my knife stabbing all the way up through his sinuses.

"Say that again and watch yourself lose a tongue," I growled.

Larra came up alongside my and placed one of her inactive 'sabers against Brogan's skull, emitter pointed toward his brain. If she flipped that switch . . . Ooh, that'd make a mess. Just thinking about it made me shudder.

"An' if she doesn't get you first," she said, "then _I_ will."

I know that was meant as a statement to assure me that I would have backup and Brogan that he would not get away easily, but for some reason, it put a tight knot in my stomach. The way it sounded to my hyper-alert ears was "If you kill her, you'll still get to fight me!" Great. That was what I always wanted. I always wanted to die in a fancy Corellian club at the hands of an Imperial captain. Hoo-rah. Note sarcasm.

"As if a treacherous Mandalorian—who now has a price on her own head, I might add—and a few leftover clones can take me," Brogan scoffed.

That did it. This overconfident Imperial scum was goin' down. Nobody would insult me or my family and get away with it! I flicked my wrist and out popped my knife, which I pressed into his throat. I wasn't pressing very hard, but the razor-sharp edge still cut a thin gash in his skin. Blood appeared around the blade, and I stared long and hard into his dull gray eyes.

"Maybe you should take that back," I suggested in a not-too-friendly tone.

"Maybe _you_ should," he retorted.

Behind him, I heard the whir of Stormtrooper rifles being lifted to firing height. They apparently had orders to shoot to kill, which was fine by me. That just meant I had to work a bit harder. Maybe I'd even break a sweat this time. I glanced over Brogan's shoulder and counted aloud.

"One, two, three, four, five . . . Ooh, only six—counting you—against eight. I fear we may be _drastically_ overwhelmed!"

I feigned a dramatic sigh of despair and heard a few snickers behind me. Apparently I still possessed the power to evoke laughter from the Delta boys. I smirked as the "good captain's" eyes flashed angrily. This was getting more and more fun by the minute!

"I _said_, you're all under arrest," he repeated. "You may come in one piece or in multiple parts!"

Beside me, Larra arched an eyebrow and smiled almost a bit conspiratorially at me. The next second, she latched her eyes onto the captain's, gazing steadily at him.

"You have the wrong man," she said, her tone even, smooth, persuasive.

Ooh, a Jedi mind trick. I'd wondered if she was able to use those . . . I almost hoped that it would work, but Brogan just laughed heartily as if someone was either tickling him with a feather or whispering a hilarious joke in his ear. From the looks of things, his Stormtrooper pals knew _nothing_ of humor. And then I remembered something I'd read that said Jedi mind tricks only worked on the _weak_-minded. Well, _osik_.

"I'm sorry," Brogan chuckled, "but those little mind tricks don't work on _me_."

"Then maybe a Deece bolt through the brain would?" Sev growled behind me, and I heard the familiar whir of a DC-17 rifle. Now where he'd been packing _that_ baby . . . I wondered if he'd had it in pieces that he had just now put together. I glanced over my shoulder at him, still holding my knife against the captain's throat.

"Now, Sev, no reason for you to get violent," I said.

"Yes, listen to your pretty friend here, 'Sev,'" Brogan mocked.

Well, I'd just about had it. He was too high-and-mighty for his own good, and someone had to knock him down a few pegs. There was no way in the galaxy that this scum of the universe would get away as easily as he was hoping. Besides, he hadn't seen violent yet . . . With a snarl, I brought my knee up between his legs, making hard contact with a certain male sensitive zone. There was a cracking sound, and Brogan moaned as he went to the ground. I caught him before he went down, and in one swift motion, had him on his stomach, both arms twisted behind his back, and me with both knees in his spine. My hair tumbled into my eyes, and I switched my knife's location to prodding the small of his back.

"I just said _he_ had no reason to get violent," I informed him. "I never mentioned me!"

I twisted his arms harder; he whimpered a bit as his joints popped. If I twisted any harder, he'd have two dislocated shoulders. He turned and glared at me, and I pressed my knife harder against him, keeping his arms pinned.

"Unhand me, damn Mandalorian!" he spat.

"Not on your life, _chakaar_!" I replied.

Behind me, I felt Chevron's eyes glued to me and the way I'd taken Brogan down. Larra crouched down in front of the captain, igniting one lightsaber. She lifted its navy blue blade to Brogan's chin, watching him with amusement.

"Don't push your luck, _burc'ya_," she said.

I looked up when Larra's 'saber came to life, and I grinned at her for a moment before I felt the barrel of a rifle pressing into _my_ back. I turned slightly and saw the white armor of a Stormtrooper leaning down toward me.

"Release him," the trooper said. Loyal lot, them. Always willing to defend their commanding officers. I tilted my head at the trooper.

"Make me."

Without hesitating, I stood, keeping a heel digging into Brogan's back, and I whirled around on the trooper, knife in hand. I brought my knife down at an angle on his wrists, cutting deep gashes in them and deftly knocking his rifle from his hands. I didn't sever his wrists, but I cut enough muscles and tendons that he'd probably have a hard time recovering without cybernetic muscular implants. He went to his knees, screaming _exactly _like a young girl. I turned and threw an angry glare at the rest of the troopers.

"You want the same treatment, or are you going to let us go in peace?"

They all looked more than a little intimidated, and it didn't hurt that several more Deeces whirred behind them. Good ol' Delta boys; always there when I need them. Brogan struggled to his feet, looking a bit pale from the blow I'd scored to his, um, "personal department."

"Oh, you'll never get away with this!" he roared. "Men, kill them all!"

Of course, he wasn't expecting the _huge_ gun Sevvie had stored away. Chev had only his fists, but that was better than nothing. Larra's other 'saber sprung to action in her off hand and she hurled the Force at Brogan and his goons, sending them careening into a nearby empty table. By now, I was certain the club's management wasn't going to be too happy with what we were doing, but, well, we didn't exactly have a choice. Besides, I'd personally take me and my family over a silly ol' club any day of the week. I glanced at the others while Brogan and his sidekicks were so conveniently incapacitated.

"Maybe we should make a run for it while they're down and out," I said, eyeing those creeps warily.

"And miss a good bar fight?" Sev chortled. "Never!"

"But we'd ruin the nice décor in here," Scorch protested. Sev shot a glare at him.

"That never bothered you before," he observed, and Scorch shrugged a bit.

"True."

"I'm with Scorch on this one," Larra said quickly. "C'mon, let's move; we'll have to find someone to turn that chip off!"

"I'm with Stick!" Chev agreed, and Sevvie nodded his own concurrence.

The three of them went dashing for the back door of the club, though Chev hung back to see that the Deltas and I got safely out. Frankly, I didn't want him to linger. I just wanted him to go, go, _go!_ The Deltas raced out, and I brought up the rear, grabbing Chev's arm just as Brogan and Company managed to stagger to their feet.

"C'mon, c'mon!" I shouted at Chev. "No use in standing around!"

He willingly took my hand and followed me out the door. On the way, I flipped our waiter a large-denomination credit chip because you know me: I _hate_ to leave a tab unpaid. But we'd just cleared the doorway when I heard Brogan and his men clamber to their feet and come after us. Brogan was shouting hysterically, barking orders for the Stormtroopers to get after us, shoot us down, the whole shebang. And you know how I am. I _adore_ running for my life on a daily basis. It's _so_ much fun. NOT! Before I knew it, those troopers were on our trail, though they seemed to be having trouble catching up at first. I stole a glance over my shoulder and saw them bearing down on us, rifles at the ready. I swore first beneath my breath and then out loud.

"Oh, _haar'chak_, they're on us!" I cried. "This is gonna be one heck of a close getaway!"

"Need sniper positions?" Boss asked, barely winded from the running. Ahh, there was his old commando training shining through again. "Maybe we could knock these guys off?"

"No," I replied, shaking my head, "we just need to get our _shebse_ out of here!"

"Freighter's not too far!" Larra called from up ahead. "Hurry!"

"If they get too close," Chev began, "I—"

My breath left me with a hard gasp as his sentence never finished. I skidded to a halt and looked back in time to see him go down from a stun bolt from an over-excited Stormtrooper's rifle. Nearby, Larra whirled around before almost stopping completely dead in her tracks.

"CHEVRON, NO!" she screamed, making up for my sudden inability to speak, much less breathe. This was surreal. He wasn't down, lying there . . . I didn't care that it was just a stun bolt; I knew if they got their hands on him, they'd take him from me in ways that made me feel sick just by imagining them. "NOT AGAIN!"

Larra started dashing back to save Chev, but Scorch's hand shot out and grabbed her arm in a tight hold.

"No, don't!" he cried. "They'll take you, too!"

My eyes went wide as I saw Chev lying there, for though I truly knew it was "just" a stun bolt, my brain plastered Geonosis over it. Suddenly, all I saw around me were high sandstone walls, and he was there . . . and _this time_, I had a chance to save him before the battle droids (see, my brain really _was_ playing tricks on me) got him. Call me crazy, but that was _exactly_ what it felt like. I whirled around to the others.

"You all get out of here!" I commanded. "I'll take care of him!"

Larra was struggling against Scorch's hold, trying to break free, as she screamed for Chev. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sevvie literally sling her over his shoulder as I darted back to where Chev had fallen. The troops were almost completely on us by then as I slipped his arm around my shoulder and hefted his unconscious body from the ground. For the first time in my life, I realized that he was genuinely _heavy_. It had to have been all muscle, but for me, it was a lot to pack. And that's not even mentioning the fact that he was so much taller than I was . . . Yet I knew I had to get him out of there. I started hauling him toward a dark, nearby corner, hoping that would serve as a good hiding place. I was beginning to wish I was in my armor, for that would've provided me with grenades and blasters (not to mention two more knives) that I could unleash on our pursuers. I was _almost_ there, _almost_ to the shadows, when there was the sudden sound of a gunshot and unexpected pain in my still-healing side. A cry of pain came out of me even though I'd wished it hadn't as I sank to my knees, still clutching Chev. I looked down and saw the familiar red color of my blood seeping out through my tunic; a red smudge appeared on the otherwise clean white plates of Chev's Imperial-issue armor as I bled through onto him. Chev's limp weight nearly knocked me over, but I managed to stay steady, holding myself upright on my knees. I almost attempted to get up, grab him, and keep going, but then Captain Brogan strode over to me, smirking smugly, as if he'd just won a major battle. Well, maybe he had, but then again . . . perhaps he hadn't. I wouldn't go back _there_, and I wouldn't let them take Chev there, either. I'd kick and scream and scratch and fight if it would _only_ keep us safe and free. I glared _hard_ up at Brogan, flipping my hair from my eyes and exhaling heavily against the pain of my throbbing, bleeding side.

"Oh, now, you should've known how foolish it'd be to try to escape," he chided mockingly. I wanted to strangle him.

"You lay a hand on us, and I'll cut it off!" I growled, feeling for my knife with the hand that wasn't holding Chev.

"As if you frighten me," Brogan scoffed. "We'll see how _intimidating_ you are once you're in a lovely little prison cell."

Prison cell . . . Oh no, oh no, oh _no_. Not _there_. Anywhere but _there_! I didn't want to die, lose my memories, or all of the above. But I had no real choice . . . I only hoped the others had gotten away. Brogan flicked his wrist, and his troopers surrounded us. As they forced me to my feet, I drew in a sharp breath at a fresh burst of pain in my side; and I'd just gotten to a point of ignoring the throbbing, too. I couldn't help but chuckle, however, when I saw that it took not one—not two—but _three_ Stormtroopers to heft Chev from the ground. There was a blaster pressed into my back, and Brogan looked at me with a cold sneer. I was so overwhelmed with anger that I drew my lips back in a snarl and deftly spit in his face. As he wiped it away, I growled hard at him.

"You _etyc chakaar_, I'll kill you if it's the last thing I ever do!"

He chuckled as if I'd just told a joke, and I watched, seething, as he daintily wiped the wetness from his cheek, brushing it off onto the dark gray fabric of his uniform. He looked at me for a few long minutes with that predatory, sadistic smile of his, and I stared back, wondering why he wasn't just hauling me off. But then I began feeling weak as I realized I felt warm wetness on my side . . . I was going to bleed first to unconsciousness and then, more likely, to death, and I suddenly wondered if that was what he was going for. I blinked slowly, shaking my head, and then I felt the ground start to spin. Brogan was still smirking at me as my vision doubled and I tumbled backwards. I felt my head smack against the cold duracrete and realized with a sick feeling that the loud groan I'd just heard was mine. But then a Stormtrooper scooped me up and started hauling me down the street. I had five seconds to realize we were heading toward an Imperial shuttle before I passed out cold. But I'm certain that the last thing I moaned before I blanked out was Chev's name, even though I knew he couldn't hear me or help. And you know what? Brogan just laughed.


	10. To Coruscant

**Chapter Nine – To Coruscant**

Sevvie hauled Larra into the _Chevron_'s main hold, placing her on a long bench against the wall. She curled into a sobbing heap, burying her face in her hands as she whimpered helplessly, crying her best friend's name. Scorch sank onto the bench beside her, trying to ease her into a tender embrace, but she slid away and curled up tighter. With a sigh of near exasperation, Sevvie bent down and clamped his hands tightly around her shoulders.

"C'mon, Stick, you gotta hang together!" he cried. "Otherwise we won't be able to go get Chev before they do anythin'!"

"No . . ." she moaned. "No, he's gone, gone again . . . not coming back, falling . . ."

Scorch looked a bit startled by her somewhat nonsensical ramblings, but he reached over and squeezed her hand anyway. Fixer dashed away to the cockpit, and Boss and Sev retreated to make battle plans as Sevvie wrapped his arms around Larra as she rocked herself back and forth, sobbing to herself.

"No, Lar, he's gonna be fine!" Scorch insisted, reaching over and joining Sevvie in embracing her. "We'll get him back!"

"And they got Rogue," Boss informed them, returning with his rifle. "Blasted her right in the side . . . I saw it."

"But we'll get them both back," Fixer nodded, returning from the cockpit once they were safely away. He looked at Larra. "Okay?"

"Hang in there, Lar," Scorch whispered, smoothing her hair. "Please?"

He closed his eyes as he hugged her, and Larra shook her head fiercely. Her hair tumbled into her eyes as she began mumbling incoherently to herself, sending fear through her husband and brothers.

"All gone," she sobbed. "Gone again . . . no going back . . ."

"Lar . . ." Sevvie sighed. "Lar, stop talking like that! We _are_ going to get him back! We _will_!"

"He's exactly right!" Scorch agreed again. "We'll get him back, no questions!"

Fixer returned to the cockpit to oversee the flight to Coruscant, for which he had chosen coordinates long before anyone had told him to. He just _knew_ that would be their first stop, and it was a well-educated guess. Sev leaned back against the wall, cradling his beloved sniper rifle with its tri-mode attachment.

"I think I've just come up with my eight hundredth reason why I hate Imps," he grumbled. Boss looked at him.

"Which is?"

"They make me mad."

"I thought that was the first!" Fixer called back from the cockpit.

Scorch ignored that little exchange and squeezed Larra's hand, silently begging her not to slip into the post-Geonosis insanity he had heard her speak of. He knew what it felt like to lose someone close . . . He knew the near-madness, too. It was familiar to him, yet it was also terrifying. He gazed long and hard at Larra until she slowly returned the squeeze on her hand. She turned, a bit hesitantly, and her eyes locked onto his. In them, Scorch saw fear, anxiety, and even a bit of vulnerability . . . She was a strong woman, but losing one of her _vode_ was her single weakness.

"We've gotta save him," she whispered, "save 'em both. One made me lose it; the other brought me back. I can't . . . lose my stability."

"And we _will_," Scorch replied decidedly. It seemed that it was solely up to him to keep Larra's hopes high. He just naturally fell into the "optimist" category. "We're not in the habit of abandoning people, you know! We'll get 'em."

Fixer looked in on the main hold from the cockpit, making eye contact with Boss.

"Triple Zero in a few hours," he stated before disappearing into the cockpit again.

Boss nodded slowly at hearing the old military term; it brought back a few memories that he was afraid he'd lost to that horrible place to which Rogue and Chevron were no doubt destined. It sent shivers down his spine, but it also opened up a new line of thought. He turned and shot something of a glare at Sevvie, who was still seated at Larra's side, offering his own comfort.

"Okay, how do you feel about Rogue _now_?" he asked, crossing his arms. "That's _twice_ she's gotten hurt and captured trying to save us."

Sevvie sighed, looking both thoughtful and annoyed that Boss should bring that topic to his attention again. He had almost allowed his mistrust to conveniently slip his mind, but now he could not escape its truth. He looked at Larra, sighing again.

"Well . . . Lar, she was the one who . . . pulled you back after Geo?" he asked, and Larra nodded slowly. Sevvie nodded as well, but more decisively. "Then, if she did that much for one of my _vode_, I deserve to owe her just as much."

"You know she'd do the same for you," Boss replied. "In fact, she _has_ been."

"Which is why we're going to get them all out!" Scorch said once more.

Larra looked at him, smiling a bit, grateful for his support. She looked up at Sevvie and squeezed his shoulder, glad he was willing to help. He just shrugged and sort of looked away, seeming slightly abashed. Fixer called back with an E.T.A of several hours, and Larra closed her eyes for a moment as if begging the Force that those hours wouldn't let them be too late. Scorch leaned over and gently kissed her cheek, whispering another assurance into her ear. She just sighed and went to find a window to gaze out of and watch the blue swirls of hyperspace rocket past.

_Don't let me be too late to save them,_ she thought.


	11. Iceheart

**Chapter Ten – Iceheart**

It really wasn't that long, but to Chevron, it felt as if days had passed since that stun bolt had caught him flush in the back. He slowly, carefully, cracked first one eye, then the other, open, and found himself in a cold, dark cell. Bonds at his wrists, ankles, and every other joint held him strapped to what seemed like an operating table, and fear immediately overtook him. He quickly looked around, trying to get an idea of where he was. The one dim light in the room cast an eerie illumination across the various medical instruments and machines that filled the cell, and he was nearly smothered by terror. He knew where he was without having to be told. This was one of those Force-forsaken "treatment rooms" onboard _Lusankya_. He gasped as the icy hand of fear reached out for his windpipe, rendering him barely able to breathe. A quick glance across the nearly completely dark room told him that Rogue was there, too . . . but she was no better off. She was tied down, as well, but even in the dimness, he could see that she was unconscious and that blood was seeping from her side. Anxious to be free and take her away again, he began tugging at his bonds, trying to break loose. But suddenly, a cold voice called out in the darkness, filling him with more fear than before.

"Stop that, TH-636," the haughty voice chided. The more you struggle, the worse your reconditioning will be."

Chevron froze, and his blood ran almost literally cold as none other than Ysanne Isard emerged from the shadows of the room, her mismatched eyes—one red, one blue, both evil—glinting cruelly, mercilessly at him. Chevron's hands curled into fists, and he wrenched his arms upward, trying to break free of the cold metal straps holding him motionless on the table.

"I ain't your tool, Iceheart," he growled, glaring up at her as she stood over him, looking down with amusement on her chiseled features. "You won't do to me what you did to most of my _vode_!"

"Delude yourself as you will," Isard replied, waving him off. "It won't matter, anyway . . . Soon, you won't remember this discussion."

Chevron snarled and resumed struggling at his bonds. Isard just chuckled as she watched before waving a few technicians forward from the darkness.

"Get him prepped for reconditioning . . . _no sedatives_."

* * *

I'll tell you what, I felt like I'd been slugged across the back of the skull with a sack of bricks. When I finally realized I could be conscious if I wished, I forced my eyes open. I almost asked aloud who'd made that agonized groan, but then I realized that—whoops—it had been me. My side replied with a burning stab of pain, and I figured that the warmth I felt in it was my blood trickling out. Well, that explained the feeling of weak lethargy I had . . . Carefully yet quickly, I cracked one eye open fully and made a complete scan of the room. Over there, not ten feet from me, was Chev . . . and—oh, Force!—technicians coming at him with needles . . . I shuddered as I called out.

"Chev, are you—" I had meant to ask if he was all right, but judging by the needles _and_ who I saw standing beside him, I was afraid of what the answer might be. I narrowed my eyes as I saw Isard standing there. Ever wondered if the devil had children? Ysanne Isard is your proof, ladies and gents. I growled at her. "_Isard_, you devil woman."

Isard looked at me, faint amusement on her cold features. (Ten creds says you can't guess how she earned the nickname of _Iceheart_.) She chuckled a bit, the spoke with a sneer.

"Rogue Fett. How quaint."

She spoke my name as if I was some sort of fungus that needed to be, I dunno, eradicated from the face of the intergalactic map. I clenched my fists and tried to move them only to find I was strapped down and couldn't move even if I wanted to. Beside her, Chev lifted his head and looked at me, desperation filling his deep brown eyes.

"Rogue, don't!" he cried. "If she does it, then you _have_ to remember so you can help!" He looked at me, fear evident on his face. His voice broke a bit, and my heart broke with it. "Please . . ."

I looked at him mournfully, wishing I could just leap up, run my knife through Isard, and take Chev away. We'd go home to Mandalore, where we could be safe, be with Larra and the others, and have a _real_ life, away from the constant threat of Isard and her obsession with brainwashing. I turned and glared at her.

"You shut up, Isard," I snarled. "Release us now, or I swear I'll kill you. If the thought of wiping his mind even crosses yours, I'll have your head."

My eyes narrowed (quite threateningly, I might add) but she just shrugged apathetically as her precious technicians dared stab a long, monstrous looking needle into Chev's arm. He flinched violently, and my heart twisted. What were they doing to him?! Oh, it didn't matter; I'd kill them all for trying to hurt him, for trying to steal him away from me!

"He is a deserter," Isard nonchalantly informed me. "He isn't the _original_, you know. He's just another copy. How you got him to think he was, I don't know . . . but I intend to end it."

"Mess with my head and I swear that I'll kill you, Isard!" Chev screamed, sounding almost inhuman with that shriek.

"As if you would remember," she scoffed.

"He's as original to me as he ever could be!" I growled at Isard. I was _not_ about to allow them to take my Chev away from me again! "I _am_ prepared to fight you to the death, Isard. You know it." I paused for a moment, looking at her and tilting my head a bit. "You say he's a deserter? Well, maybe you'd like to know that I am, too! Remember how Vader kept hiring me out to do his dirty work but I refused to kill? You might as well label me a deserter, too."

"I already have," she retorted, "and once both you and TH-636—"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Chev screeched. Isard ignored him and continued.

"—have received treatment, we shall see."

One of her technicians approached her and offered a brief, almost curt nod. Behind him, I heard the low whirring of machinery, and every muscle in my body tensed. The room was suddenly filled with the nauseating smell of antiseptics, causing fear to run rampant through me despite my best efforts to keep myself calm.

"Madam Director, the equipment is ready," the technician said.

"Good," Isard nodded. "Bring it in. We shall let them watch each other forget."

My heart sped up, slamming against my chest wall so hard that I thought it was going to explode. I struggled harder against whatever was pinning me down. I _had_ to get up, _had_ to fight, _had_ to save Chevron! Fear had made his face as white as a sheet, and he looked desperately at me as if I had some miracle up my sleeve. Well, I didn't, and that tore me up. I thrashed, trying to free myself, ignoring the pain in my side.

"YOU LET HIM GO, YOU HEAR ME?!" I screamed at Isard at the top of my lungs, using every ounce of breath I had in me. "YOU GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS AWAY FROM HIM, YOU _ETYC_ SCHUTTA!" I quickly looked at Chev, my eyes wide and brows furrowed. "_Hold on_, Chev! _Just fight it!_"

"I'll try!" he cried with a fierce nod. "I won't forget! I _won't_!"

You have no idea what it felt like to watch those technicians swarm around him as Isard just stood back, watching with an expression of depraved pleasure on her face. You could never possibly know unless you've been through the same thing. Chev was shouting angrily, swearing in Mando'a, and fighting his bonds with everything he had in him. My heart was racing, every muscle in my body screamed _"RUN!"_, every nerve felt as if it was five seconds away from self-destruction . . . I thought I would go mad with fear. I thought those technicians would never step away from Chevron, never leave him alone.

Finally, they stood back, revealing Chev with needles sticking out of him all up and down his body. Blood oozed out of most of the holes where the needles were prodding, and I winced. His eyes flashed angrily at Isard and her goons, and his fists were clenched so tightly that I was certain he would break the bones of his hands. But even broken hands would be better than a memory wiped clean of everything. I felt dread move in beside the fear. Had he remembered _everything_ only to have it stolen from him? If I had had any sort of faith in the Force, it was almost completely gone, because I couldn't believe how it could allow him to suffer like this! Isard chuckled a bit at the anger flaming in his eyes as she slowly thumbed a button she clutched. I wanted to scream, but my voice was gone. I could scarcely breathe. Chev started taking deep breaths through clenched teeth before he turned and looked long and hard at me, his eyes boring holes through me. He started twitching a bit, but he kept looking at me. I knew he was fighting. He was clinging to my face, my memory, and holding onto everything that went with that. Yet even I could tell that he was in pain, and who knew what was happening inside him—his mind, especially? It seemed that all he could do was keep his gaze locked on me, so I kept mine on him. Before long, his body began spasming violently, and I felt a strangled cry rise in my throat as I watched his eyes grow slightly misty. He shook his head, trying to keep focused, his gaze still on me, but I watched in horror as his eyes gradually started to look . . . dead. The strangled cry came up a bit, emerging as a faint whimper as his eyes suddenly looked completely alien. They were suddenly so unfamiliar to me, and all I could think about was that this had gone horribly, horribly wrong. His fists unclenched as he sagged backward, and he blinked once, slowly, before passing out. Isard released her hold of the button and waved the technicians forward to remove the needles from him.

Chev . . . my Chev . . . He was lying there motionless, unconscious, but he still seemed dazed even in that state. I couldn't help but gasp, horrified, as tears began streaming down my face. I kept looking at him, watching, _hoping_ to see a sign that would tell me this was just a feint. Nothing.

"Chev, no . . . NO!" I screamed. "No, I _won't_ lose you again!" I turned savagely on Isard, almost literally foaming at the mouth. "Damn you, Isard! I hope you go to the lowest hell! And when I have my way, I'll send you there _myself_!"

I kept screaming at the top of my lungs until I went hoarse. Isard just looked at me as if I was an amusing little curiosity in a traveling sideshow, a cruel, hateful smirk creeping across her face. She waved her technicians over to me.

"Set her up."

"Yes, Madam Director."

Not me. I _wouldn't_ be next! If I had lost my Chev again, I had to survive so I could try to get him back! I was _not_ about to take this lying down . . . even if I was flat on my back on an operating table of sorts. The technicians warily approached me, needles at the ready, and I snapped my head around, glaring _hard_ at them. They saw the death ray glares I was shooting them, and they hesitated a bit. Good. If I could get them to hesitate, then maybe I could break free and slice them all into little bitty pieces with either the knife up my sleeve or down my boot—or both.

"Lay a hand on me, and I _will_ fight back!" I threatened. "I won't go so easily!"

I realized at that point that my feet were relatively free. They had my knees tied down, but whoever had put the bonds on my ankles had done a lousy job. If they would get close enough, I could kick them all and get them to back off a bit . . . I kept struggling against those awful things pinning me down, my eyes narrowed. I _would_ get free; I wouldn't let them take my memories from me! Those memories were my entire life, and looking across the room at Chevron, who lay there unconscious, only made me want to survive _more_. Yet even as I was fighting, the technicians came and stabbed their awful needles into my arms, and I let out a howl of pain and rage. Isard took up a position at the foot of the table, watching. I leveled her with a cold glare, breathing hard from pain and terror. My heart was absolutely racing, and I felt as if my nerves would go completely frayed at any point.

"I will _NOT_ lose my memory, 'Madam Director,'" I spat. "You won't take that from me! You will _NOT_, you hear me?!"

I kept struggling, but the techs just kept inserting the needles. My breath was coming in labored, shallow breaths, and Isard gave me a predatory smile. At that point, I swore to myself that I would kill her if it was the last thing I ever did. My side was still bleeding, and now there were small trickles of blood seeping out from where the needles had pierced my flesh. I was certain they were stabbing all the way through my muscles and perhaps even through my bones. All I knew was that it _hurt_. Isard just shook her head a bit.

"Oh, you _will_ forget, _Fett'ad_," she said slowly, darkly. "And then you will be _remade_."

The techs scurried away from my side, and Isard once more slowly thumbed the button in her hand. Something whirred in my ears, and I started thrashing again. It _hurt_ so much . . . I wondered if it was supposed to, but then again, perhaps it was. Perhaps this was all about inflicting pain. I knew that had to be the reason behind all this. Far be it from the Empire to be _gentle_ with prisoners! A sudden feeling of desperation swallowed me whole, and I frantically raced into my mind to grab hold of anything I could. My eyes darted around the dark room as I panted, and mentally, I held onto everything I could. My entire life was there, playing out like a holovid in my head. I grabbed madly at whatever I could clamp my brain around. I would hold onto eternity if I had to! I would _not_ go this route . . . wouldn't end up like Chev . . .

"Isard . . ." I groaned, my voice slurring a bit. Whatever they'd injected into me was beginning to make me dizzy. "You . . . are . . . _mine_ . . ."

I barely got the words out as my vision began to swirl. My heart was pounding, pumping adrenaline through my bloodstream to every muscle in my body, and I kept groping in my mind for _something_ to cling to. I needed whatever I could keep in case this atrocity worked and I lost everything else. I needed some sort of starting block that would allow me to fight back! I _had_ to fight. Fighting was all I knew how to do. Since I was six, I'd been fighting for my very existence in the universe, and lately, I'd had to fight a lot more often just to keep myself alive. But yet, as I lay there, my body rendered motionless by the bonds, the needles, and whatever chemicals they were injecting into me, I felt my mind start to grow fuzzy. With a shriek of horror, I realized that this obscenity was actually happening. I began to sob as I more desperately clawed at my memories, which were slowly becoming more fragmented . . . One by one, I watched my life slip from my thoughts, my mind, my very essence—who I was . . . My desperation increased until I latched onto the only thing I could get my mental hands around: _my first name_.

_Rogue . . . Rogue . . . Roguerogueroguerogue . . . Yep, that's me!_ That was the only thought I could keep.

My eyes crossed a few times as I glared up at Isard, feeling suddenly too weak to move. She was watching me, faint amusement playing across her icy features. Then she waved the techs over, and they grabbed the table I was on, wheeling me out of the room. The last thing I saw before I passed out from pain, exhaustion, and blood loss was Chevron being taken the opposite direction.

And all I could think then was, _Who was he?_


	12. To Save a Brother

**Chapter Eleven – To Save a Brother**

While Ysanne Isard was executing her depraved treatment on her unfortunate prisoners, Larra was determinedly preparing herself for a full assault on _Lusankya_. As far as she was concerned, Isard had gone much too far this time. Horrible memories from her own "treatment" haunted her still; the whole experience was too fresh in her mind for her sit idly by and allow her brother and his beloved to undergo the same abominable abuse. Sevvie was standing firmly behind her in her plans to free Chevron and Rogue; he was offering his full support, no matter what happened. And so, as the freighter rocketed through hyperspace, bound for Coruscant, Larra and the others gathered in the main hold to create a plan of attack. Larra held Chevron's datapad, which had been with her since Sevvie had cracked the secrets of the Empire's first re-cloning experiment wide open. She looked down at it, where she had the schematics of _Lusankya_ spread across the 'pad's screen. Rogue and Chev's escape route was still marked by bright yellow lines.

"Right, so we get in," she said, pointing down at the location on the 'pad that was the secret tunnel into the prison. We pose as guards and take care of whoever's guarding those two. We go and take the guards' places while one of us slips in to get them. Then we quietly get out again. Simple and easy to remember."

"I like it," Boss replied with a nod. "Besides, judging that it's _us_, we should have no problem swiping a few uniforms. After all . . . I'm sure we look _exactly_ like the guards, anyway."

The others nodded in slow agreement; the thought that clones of Jango were still being recreated was sobering. Yet they all knew that if the Empire had to resort to such means of bolstering their ranks, then not many people supported the Emperor enough to volunteer for service in his army. Scorch crossed his arms and sighed, eyeing the datapad in Larra's hands.

"I don't mean to be a turncoat and rain on everybody's parade," he said, "but . . . what if they've already been mind-wiped? What do we do _then_?"

"We rescue them and give the anti-amnesia treatment like Lar did with us," Sev answered matter-of-factly.

"But he has a point," Fixer conceded with a sigh. "Lar might be able to help Chev get his memories back, but . . . none of us really know what Rogue's got locked up in her head."

"You all are being so pessimistic," Boss chided. "We're going to get in, get them, and get out. And everything will be fine."

"Besides," Sevvie added, "if Lar can help Chev remember, maybe hearing about _him_ will get Rogue to think straight."

Larra nodded in agreement before consulting the datapad again. The route that had been used to escape _out _seemed like a solid path to take to escape _in_. Boss tapped his chin with his index finger, looking thoughtful.

"Perhaps," he mused. "But we don't even know if they've been brainwashed yet. Those Imps blasted Rogue pretty good . . . They might wait for her to recover. We probably still have time. Fixer, how long till we get there?"

Fixer scurried off to the cockpit to check on the ship's controls, which had been set on auto-pilot almost since they escaped Corellia. He called back to the group as he studied the chart the navicomputer was producing.

"Well . . ." he said slowly, watching the estimated time of arrival tick down. "We're coming out of hyperspace . . . Now!"

Just then, the freighter shuddered a bit as hyperspace receded and the ship drifted out of lightspeed into Coruscant's upper atmosphere. Fixer eased the ship down toward the city-planet's bustling surface, clearing them with air traffic control before heading for the docking bays. As soon as they came to a standstill in a safe hangar bay, Larra rose from her seat and nodded decisively.

"All right, everyone in civvies," she instructed before looking at Sevvie with an arched eyebrow. "Sevvie, you _do_ have civvies, right?"

"No problem," he smirked.

Larra nodded, satisfied, as she and the others dashed away to change out of their armor and into much more comfortable civilian clothes. Once they were all dressed in more casual, less obvious clothes, they returned to the main hold to plot their first step. Sevvie rolled his shoulders from time to time, being quite uncomfortable in something besides his usual armor. Larra set her hands on her hips after assuring herself that her lightsabers were in place.

"All right, we're good to go," she said, then looked to Scorch. "You still have that _Lusankya_ keycard you swiped?"

Scorch made a dive for his gear and fished out a small electronic card, a smirk on his face. He remembered how he had acquired it . . . Long story short, it was a little bit of light-fingeredness in a Corellian cantina. Combine that with a somewhat depressed _Lusankya_ guard who was on leave, and he had his hands on a very valuable pass. He flashed the card at Larra, smiling broadly despite the situation.

"Yep, here it is," he declared. "Always knew it'd come in handy . . ."

He chuckled to himself as Larra tossed a glance at Sevvie, who was shrugging a bit and trying to accustom himself to the freeness of civvies.

"You'll get used to it," she assured him, and he gave her a strained smile. She nodded toward the loading ramp. "All right, let's go."

The group stepped out of the freighter and onto the streets of Coruscant, looking around a bit for a place in which to disappear. A group of tourists amassed nearby, so the six quickly slipped into it, easily blending with the camera-happy visitors. They followed the group for a long distance until Larra glanced at the datapad and realized they were within a few hundred feet of their destination. Grabbing the others' attention, she led them off down a dark alley until they circled around and arrived at what seemed simply like an exhaust port. At their feet was a half-opened hatch, and Larra crouched down beside it, holding the 'pad in one hand as she shoved the hatch back with the other.

"We're here. In we go."

As the others stood guard to assure that they would not be caught by a passing patrol, Boss slid in first, sighing a bit.

"I'd hoped to never go back to this place . . ." he said mournfully.

"Even though this is for a good cause?" Scorch replied, sliding down after him. There was a pause before Boss spoke again.

"All right, but this is the _last_ time I ever set foot in here!"

"Last time," Larra promised, bringing up the rear and pulling the hatch back into place, sealing them in darkness. "Ever. Period."

"C'mon," Sevvie said, slipping down through the tunnel and out into the dark belly of _Lusankya_ after Boss and Scorch. Sev, Fixer, and Larra were right behind him. "Stick, you'll have to get those Jedi powers ready so you can distract any guards."

"Sevvie, I'm already ready," came the reply.

"All right, where do you think they'll be keeping them?" Fixer asked, glancing around in the darkness.

"Probably where we were," Sev answered, and Larra nodded in confirmation.

"Good to know," Boss said, "but we still need to find us some armor to 'borrow.'"

Larra consulted the map on the datapad before waving them down a corridor toward what appeared to be a barracks. As she glanced around warily, Scorch passed his keycard to Sevvie, who used it to crack open the door in a mere two seconds. He ushered the others into the barracks, which were mercifully empty. Had they not been, their entire operation would have been shot. As it was, what they were doing was already risky. It was a miracle that they'd slipped down that secret hatch and remained undetected by either Imperial cameras or a nosy civilian outside. But they _were_ inside, so they had something to be grateful for. As Larra studied her map, Sevvie motioned to the barracks.

"All right, everyone get a suit and someone find a terminal to get into," he said. "Then we'll know what's going on with Chev and Rogue."

Needless to say, they all had a feeling of uncertainty. Perhaps it was just a side effect of being inside _Lusankya_'s horrible walls again; perhaps it was because they were, deep down, unsure of their timing. Yet those feelings contributed in part to an increase in speed, for the group scattered and quickly tugged suits of Stormtrooper armor on over their civvies. Of course, it was a little unpleasant, since the armor was already close-fitting as it was. Their civvies beneath it only made the ordeal worse. But if this was what it took to rescue their friends, then it was worth it. They quickly suited up, and as soon as they looked convincingly like Stormtroopers, Fixer darted out of the barracks and around a corner in search of a terminal. He took the 'pad from Larra as he left, forcing them all to wait until he had recovered whatever information he could from the Imperial network. After several long minutes, he returned, the 'pad clutched tightly in his hand.

"What do you have?" Boss asked, adjusting the somewhat ill-fitting armor plates.

"Everything I could find," Fixer replied. "The system was highly encrypted . . . Took me a while just to crack through. I didn't even bother to read the data; I just downloaded it all."

He tossed the 'pad to Sevvie, who caught it deftly and switched it on, the glow of its screen illuminating the otherwise dark barracks. He shielded it with his arm to prevent too much light as Fixer continued.

"I think it needs some translation . . . I can't make heads or tails of some of their gibberish."

Sevvie took the 'pad and sat down on a nearby bunk with it, hunching over it and typing madly at the screen for a few seconds. Suddenly, he inhaled sharply as his eyes went wide, and he growled under his breath.

"My Force . . ." he breathed. "_Etyc kaminiise! Aruetiise!_"

Larra moved quickly to his side and looked over his shoulder as she took a startled breath before beginning to read the words written across the screen. From the looks of things, Fixer had downloaded the official data record concerning the origins one of the very prisoners they were seeking to free.

"'Genetic data of ARC Theta-636 received from Kaminoans. Reconstruction commencing.'" Larra took another breath. "_Haar'chak_ . . ."

"Wow," Scorch stated. "Those fish faces sold him out!"

"I wonder what the price was," Boss said, sounding angry.

"No wonder I've gotten the sudden urge to slit one of their long, skinny throats," Sev chuckled darkly.

"Wait, wait," Fixer interrupted, lifting his hands. "There was some new stuff in there. The timestamp was from a few hours ago. From what I saw, ol' Iceheart's been . . . 'interrogating' them."

"Oh, _bad_," Scorch moaned. Boss nodded in solemn agreement.

"Understatement of the century."

Larra's eyes flashed with anger as she took the 'pad from Sevvie, flipping to the map. She noted that now there were two dots on the screen, each indicating the separate cell blocks in which Chevron and Rogue were being held. She studied the map until she had it memorized, at which point she passed it around the room. When the 'pad returned to her, she switched it off and shoved it in her belt.

"All right, two groups, one ARC a group," she said. "Sevvie, you go get Rogue; I'll pick up Chev. Who's with me?"

"I'll go with you," Scorch said, crossing the room to her side. Fixer followed.

"You think we'll make it in time to save them both?" he asked, seeming a bit unsure of the situation.

"We have to," Boss replied. "That's what we came here to do, isn't it? We've not failed a mission yet!"

"All right, _buy'cese_ on," Larra instructed, and the others did so. Tap a com twice when you reach the cells, once when you've got 'em. Just run if you're caught, understand?"

They all nodded that they did, and Larra motioned to the barracks' door.

"Good. Move on out!"

With that, she dashed out of the barracks, leading Scorch and Fixer down one hallway as Sevvie took Boss and Sev down the other. Fixer almost immediately took the lead, following the map from the datapad, which he had deftly memorized so Larra could hold onto the actual 'pad. He led them through _Lusankya_'s dark belly, weaving his way through the most far removed corridors to keep from being detected and caught. That was the _last_ thing he wanted. He could barely see through his borrowed helmet, but it pleased him that the comlink worked well. Behind him, Scorch spoke.

"Almost there?"

"Yeah, just about," Fixer replied. He looked up and found themselves rapidly approaching the cell block that had been listed on the map as the one Chevron was in. He motioned forward. "Aha."

Quickly, he tapped the comm twice, indicating a location. An acknowledgment came from the other half of the group, and Scorch scurried off.

"Okay, start looking around," he said. "He could be anywhere!"

He and Fixer fanned out through the cell block, peering through each door they came across in hopes that one of the cells would be holding Chev. Larra hung back a moment, closing her eyes and reaching out through the Force for him. There was one signature that stood out from Scorch's or Fixer's, or even those of the others on the opposite side of the prison. It was fainter, weaker, but still recognizable, and she took off at a full run down one aisle of the cell block. She skidded to a halt in front of one of the heavy steel doors, and after picking the lock, she threw it open and burst inside, crouching down at Chevron's side.

"Chev?" she whispered, reaching down and touching his motionless shoulder. "Chev, c'mon, gimme a sign, _vod_ . . ."

Chevron groaned faintly, and she exhaled with relief. Not wasting a moment, she scooped him up, his chest against her back in that old military style of hauling wounded comrades. That way, he wasn't as heavy to lift. Besides, she was nearly an inch taller than he and just as strong. This was no problem. She rapped the comm once and gathered Scorch and Fixer, and they all raced back to the secret passageway to wait for the others.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the virtual opposite side of the compound, Sevvie, Boss, and Sev were darting down long, cold corridors on their way to Rogue's cell. Sevvie counted down cell doors until they reached the one Rogue would be in, looking ahead so as not to overshoot it.

"Just a few more . . . Here!"

He motioned to one of the doors before racing to it and deftly slicing through the lock as Boss sent the two taps over the comm, receiving a confirmation from Larra. He waved the others through into the cell, where Sev promptly dashed over to the motionless, bloody heap in one of the cell's dark corners.

"Yep . . . We've got us one missing junior bounty hunter, that's for sure." He reached into his belt and fished out a pen-sized instrument, which he pressed against the side of Rogue's neck before looking at it and sighing. "Not reading good vitals, though . . ."

"_Well, get in there!"_ Scorch cried over the comlink._ "Somebody's gotta save her! We'll be there in a few."_

"Let's go," Sevvie said flatly. "Sounds like they've got Chev."

Without hesitation, he strode into Rogue's cell and gently eased her into his strong arms, allowing her limp head to rest against his shoulder. Suddenly, it didn't matter that he had not trusted her before; it didn't matter that her blood was staining his clothing. All he knew was that this young woman had helped his _vod_ and now he had to do his part to help _her_. He got a bit of a strange look from Sev that manifested itself in an arched eyebrow, but he squared his shoulders and strode past, earning himself a silent nod of approval—which he never saw—from Boss. They sent one tap over the comm, and Boss turned to speak into it.

"All right, gang, we're coming up on you. All quiet where you are?"

"_Sure thing,"_ Scorch replied._ "Not a creature is stirring . . . Wait. Was that a mouse droid?"_

"_No, you're just being paranoid,"_ Fixer grumbled.

"Hurry it up," Boss urged. "Let's rendezvous and get out of here. We've got ourselves a barely breathing Fett here."

Sevvie took off at a rather fast jog down the corridors until he saw Larra and the others directly ahead, packing Chevron. He ran up alongside and nodded down to Rogue before darting off again.

"Got her!" he cried. "Barely breathing!"

"_Fierfek!_" Larra gasped. "C'mon, everyone, back . . . before Isard catches us all!"

On her back, Chevron came to a bit and groaned softly. She glanced back at him.

"Who . . . you?" he asked weakly.

"We're gonna help you," Larra replied gently. "Take a rest, but don't fall asleep, okay?"

He moaned, and Larra bit her lip in worry before dashing away at her top speed. She wasn't sure how it happened, but they made it back to the tunnel without problem. Deep inside, she felt that the Force was somehow looking out for their wellbeing. She only hoped that they had arrived in time, but she wasn't holding her breath. Not wasting one precious moment, the Deltas scrambled up the tunnel and out the hatch at the top before reaching back down for the rescued pair. Larra gently eased Chevron up into Sev and Scorch's grasp, but Sevvie stubbornly clutched Rogue against his chestplate as he clambered up the tunnel. He was insistent upon rescuing her _by_ _himself_ as if that would make up for his mistrusting her. Before long, they were out on the street and making a break for a dark, nearby alley. Fixer dashed away for the docking bays to bring the freighter in closer, and Sevvie relinquished his hold on Rogue as the group laid both her and Chevron gently on the ground. Boss quickly lifted the hem of Rogue's tunic, revealing the extensive damage the blaster bolt had caused.

"Ooh, this is gonna be _close_ for her," he said, reaching for some bacta to apply to the wound. "Got one heck of a hole blasted in her ribcage."

He reached over, checking her pulse, and a few moments later, the freighter arrived at a nearer docking bay, and the group looked up. Sevvie scooped Rogue up once more as Larra hefted Chevron.

"I say time to move, eh?" Sev said.

"Yes," Larra replied. She nodded to Rogue, who lay completely limp in Sevvie's armored grasp. "Hurry; if we can get her someplace relatively stable, I can try my hand at healing again . . ."

Sevvie gave her a nod before they all darted away to the waiting freighter. Once inside, Sevvie gently laid the unconscious Rogue on the bench against the wall before scampering away to the cockpit to help Fixer. Larra settled Chevron nearby as the Deltas raced in and retracted the loading ramp behind them. The ship lifted easily from the docking bay and shot off toward the space lanes and freedom beyond. A few moments after takeoff, Chevron's eyes fluttered open, and Larra instinctively grabbed his hand.

"Are we . . . out?" he asked softly.

"Yes," came Larra's gentle reply. "Don't worry; once we're outta here, we'll chat, okay?"

Chevron nodded slowly as Larra squeezed his shoulder before kneeling beside Rogue and lifting away the bloodstained tunic. She gently placed her hands against the battered, bloody skin, focusing all her Force energies on healing the terrible wound. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she smoothed her hands across the broken flesh, willing new skin to form and seal the injury. Beneath her fingers and soft touch, Rogue's side gradually healed, returning to its original healthy state. Larra sat back, exhaling deeply, as Rogue stirred slightly, her breathing evening out to a slumber-like deepness. Now all Larra had to do was wait.


	13. Amnesia Onslaught

**Chapter Twelve – Amnesia Onslaught**

I don't know what was going on, but as I let out a groan and cracked an eye open, I suddenly felt _really_ good . . . perhaps just a little tired. I felt pretty much like a newborn baby, to put it simply; it felt just as if I'd been asleep for a long while. But I opened both eyes and looked around and found a woman kneeling at my side. She had short-ish black hair, brown eyes that gazed concernedly at me, and she was wearing rather shiny white armor but no helmet. As I looked up at her, I swallowed and realized I was thirsty. Not quite feeling up to talking yet, I touched a hand to my throat and mouthed _water_, and the woman dashed away only to return a few moments later with a canteen. I didn't waste any time. I sat up and gulped the water down before leaving heavily back. Suddenly, I had the strange feeling that I'd just spent a lot of time in the nastiest place that side of the nine hells, and I shuddered a bit as an odd sensation of pain swept through me.

"Please . . ." I said in a near whisper. "Tell me I'm . . . away from that . . . that place."

I sighed a bit and closed my eyes, feeling thoroughly exhausted, strangely. I didn't even know what place I meant . . . All I knew was that I'd been someplace horrible and that I wanted to be out of there. The woman reached over and squeezed my hand, nodding.

"Yeah, you're outta there," she said. "You're safe now; trust me on that. Just trust me, Rogue . . ."

"How do you . . . how do you know my name?" I asked as confusion prodded me. I cracked my eyes open and looked my potential rescuer over, studying her for a long minute. "Do I even know you? Oh, well . . . thanks for the help, I guess."

Her eyes went wide, and she looked almost _heartbroken_, to tell the truth. I experienced more confusion but didn't say anything. She squeezed my hand harder than she had before, and I gave a faint start of surprise. Where was I, who was she, and why was she showing such concern for me?

"You're welcome, Rogue," she said gently. "And yeah . . . _I_ know _you_. You've helped me a couple times . . . Guess it's time for me to owe you."

I raised an eyebrow slightly. Since I didn't feel out of my mind, then she had to be the lunatic. I just nodded warily.

"Uh . . . okay." Best to play along, I thought. "You're gonna have to forgive the . . . spotty memory, a' right? I was out there for a long time . . ."

I chuckled faintly as I looked around, taking in my surroundings. From the looks of things, I was in the main hold of your typical freighter, such as those smugglers use. But she didn't look like a smuggler . . . It didn't matter. It was a nice enough ship. It wasn't too big, but it was cozy, and it seemed as if it had enough space. Over in the corner were three armored men; I must've ended up with a battalion of soldiers! But then again, maybe I hadn't. They were pulling off their armor plates, revealing ordinary civilian clothes. Hmm. I'd have to ask someone about that later. Another thing I noticed was that they all seemed to have the same face . . . Something twinged in the back of my brain, causing me to furrow my brows. _Note to self: Get some introductions and a few answers!_ I turned back to the woman beside me and nodded a bit.

"Not a bad little ship," I commented. "Cozy enough . . . You wouldn't happen to know where we're going, though, would you . . . ? Sorry . . . I didn't catch the name . . ."

I offered a sheepishly apologetic smile which faded as I saw her take a few deep breaths. My eyebrows swept upwards into a confused arch; something was wrong. Why else would someone take nerve-calming breaths just to make an introduction?

"I'm Larra," she said quietly. "Larra Fett. And you'll have to ask Sevvie where we're going . . ."

_Larra. Okay, I can remember that,_ I thought with a self-assured nod. _And who's Sevvie? Oh, he must be the pilot._

I was about to introduce myself, but for the life of me I couldn't drag out a last name. Part of me said I'd never had one. The other part said that it had just slipped my mind. Humans are prone to do that from time to time, you see. Nevertheless, I was about to give my first name when someone groaned nearby. Just off to the side, a young man, maybe just shy of thirty years old, struggled to his feet. He looked a bit out of it until he gazed at the woman, Larra.

"You . . . I know you!" he cried. "You're . . . you're Stick . . . no, Larra! You rescued me!"

Larra beamed and embraced him, and I felt a bit uncomfortable with the show of emotion. He just smiled as Larra released him, and then his gaze fell on me. His eyes flashed as if he recognized me, and he moved closer to where I was.

"I know your face," he breathed. "Rogue . . . _cyar'ika_ . . . _ner cyar'ika _. . ."

He knelt beside me and clasped my hands in his, gazing right into my eyes. I gave a start, for I recognized the words he'd used. I didn't recognize _him_, but I knew the words. He'd just called me his sweetheart . . . But how could that be? I'd never seen him before in my life! I stared at him in complete confusion, blinking slowly. His face was unfamiliar, but it was a lot like Larra's as well as those armored men I'd seen. I swallowed hard, wondering if this entire ship was full of lunatics or if there was something wrong with me. After all, he knew my name . . .

"Okay, yeah, you got my name right," I admitted, "but . . . Can't say as how we've met. You sure you're all right upstairs?"

The man (whose name I learned later, after many questions, was Chevron) stiffened, and his grasp on my hands tightened. Across the way, I saw those three men (named Boss, Scorch—what a name!—and Sev) exchange what seemed like fearful glances.

"No . . . please, _Ro'ika_ . . ." Chevron begged. "Please, remember . . ."

Larra took his shoulder as both of them began shuddering. I took a nervous breath. The trio crept closer to me and breathed almost a simultaneous sigh of dismay.

"Oh, no . . ." the one called Boss murmured.

"We're too late," Scorch whispered, sending my entire body on high alert.

"I'll slit Isard's throat if it's the last thing I ever do," Sev growled.

I was suddenly filled with more confusion. Who was this Isard person? What had happened to me? Who _were_ these people, and why did this one think I was his sweetheart? I took another long look at Chevron's strong, undeniably handsome features as my brows furrowed.

"Okay, you _do_ look . . . a bit familiar," I conceded. "It's like—maybe—we met in passing a long time ago; I dunno. It's just that . . . my head . . . It feels so . . . so _clean_ and . . . it hurts . . . !"

It _did_ hurt; it was excruciating. It felt as if my very brain was about to explode. Chevron took my face, holding it in his hands, and pressed his forehead to mine. I felt his brows crease and felt the warmth of tears as they trickled down his face. I suddenly felt more afraid and confused than I had before, but with that was sympathy for him. But I also knew that they weren't the ones with problems. _I_ had to be. This was all too real for them to be the normal ones. There had to be something wrong with _me_.

"_Ro'ika_ . . ." Chevron whispered, his voice breaking. "Isard got you . . . I'll kill her for this . . . I swear I'll kill Ysanne Isard for taking you from me . . ."

He glanced up and tried to look into my eyes, but I noticed that he quickly broke his gaze, biting his lip. It was as if something he'd seen once before (and that I couldn't remember ever having been there) was completely vanished. I felt terror rise in me, and my eyes darted around in fear and overwhelming anxiety.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked, still unsure of the situation. "What's wrong—?"

I broke off rather abruptly as my eyes began darting around the room. To be honest, I felt like a frightened, wild animal that had been cornered. I knew now that something _was_ wrong. That was the only explanation for the pounding in my head and the unexplainable pain in my heart whenever that poor boy tried to look into my eyes but found himself unable.

"You've . . . had a bit of tampering, I'm afraid . . ." Boss explained gently. I looked up, startled.

"Tampering . . . ?" I asked, begging to know. "What did they do to me?!"

"They wiped your memory, Rogue," Larra sighed mournfully. "They wiped you even worse than Jarred . . ."

_And who the hell are 'they'?!_ I wanted to scream.

"How bad was Ace?" Chevron asked, and I couldn't help but wonder to myself if _Ace_ and _Jarred_ were different names for the one who had told me I'd had tampering.

"Let's just say he took longer to remember than the others," was Larra's response.

At that, I saw fear flame up in Chevron's eyes as he gathered me into his arms and held me tightly, and I couldn't help but wonder if that in itself was instinctual. But right then, I needed someone to hold me. If somebody had harmed me, I just needed a little support . . . I clung desperately to him out of pure terror, and I felt hot tears sting the backs of my eyes. I hastily blinked them back, but a few slipped out anyway.

"That's why . . . why I don't know any of you," I realized slowly, horrified. "Why you're acting like I should, but I don't . . ."

Overwhelmed by a strong sense of panic and dread, I squeezed my eyes shut and buried myself in Chevron's shoulder as I began to sob. I felt exactly like a little child who had awakened in the middle of the night after a bad dream, but this was far worse than a bad dream because it was _real_. Chevron cradled me, trying to offer comfort.

"Who am I?!" I shrieked. "_I don't even know!_"

Then, just like that, Chevron's hold on me released as he grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake, eyes boring through me as he stared right at me. I was startled by the sudden roughness in his hands as he gripped my shoulders.

"Your name is Rogue Fett," he said firmly. Fett . . . Wasn't that Larra's name? Oh, who knew? I couldn't remember! "You're a bounty hunter with scruples, and you love me. You've had a couple fights with Larra and made up afterward. We're all friends here . . . We're your _vode_."

My brothers . . . ? I blinked slowly, trying to process this new information. I felt as if I was sliding rapidly toward a point of desperation that would let me believe anything they told me as truth. And I was still surprised by the fierceness in his eyes as he tightly squeezed my shoulders. But yet . . . something was burning in the back of my mind. It made me feel as if all that he had said really _was_ true, as if it was natural. I nodded hesitantly, sniffling and blinking back the rest of my unshed tears.

"That . . . sounds all right, I guess," I said. "Sort of natural. Is that right?"

"Should be," Boss nodded. "It's accurate information."

I nodded again, glad to hear that, as I chewed at my bottom lip for a moment, thinking. I had two options here: I could try to remember what I'd apparently forgotten, or I could stubbornly let it stay like that. It occurred to me then that if I remembered, I could go after the demon spawns who had brought this down on me . . . Revenge, I guess. Besides, I didn't like the . . . the _emptiness_ I felt inside me where everything that made me who I was should have been. I gave a deliberate nod.

"I guess I'd be willing to remember my identity," I said slowly. "I'll try."

Chevron leaned over and gently hugged me, and I patted his shoulder. Larra took mine as she sat down on the bench beside me. She offered a small smile of encouragement.

"You will," she soothed. "The rest of us did. No doubts that you will, too."

I tilted my head a bit before I—rather readily, I might add—returned Chevron's embrace. I don't know; perhaps I just needed the comfort. I looked at everyone around me and tried to put on a brave face even though I was trembling inside.

"Then this . . . brainwashing stuff is insanely common in this galaxy, huh?" I asked, trying to make myself feel better by assuring myself that I wasn't the only amnesiac hanging around.

"Way more common than any of us would like!" Scorch exclaimed.

"Yeah," Sev growled darkly. "I'm still slitting Isard's throat."

"I thought Chev had called that one."

That was a new voice. I looked around and found its source coming from another man who looked a lot like the others but had a "computer whiz" air to him—Fixer. He tossed me a small, two-fingered salute, and I nodded. Chevron sort of chuckled at his comment and looked at me.

"We'll let Rogue have first dibs," he said, and I couldn't help but chuckle. "Then the rest of us can have a hack at her."

"Oh, like an Isard piñata?" Larra asked smoothly, eyebrows raised.

"Something like that," Chevron smirked.

I snickered a bit before returning to my previous seriousness and drumming my fingers on my chin. I felt a scar there and realized I didn't know where that had come from, either. With a sigh, I managed to shrug it off for the time being, instead choosing to keep my perky outlook despite knowing I'd probably never regain the memories I'd had.

"Well, I guess since we're all going to kill her, then she's the one at fault for my . . . spotty memory," I said. "That explains why she sounds familiar."

"Great!" Scorch exclaimed suddenly and excitedly, making me jump. "We've got something to go on! What's the first thing you remember, huh?"

I almost answered, but Boss reached over and put a hand on Scorch's shoulder, slowing the overenthusiastic young man down a bit.

"You don't think you're going too fast?" he asked. Scorch _almost_ looked repentant.

"_I_ don't," I admitted, then crossed my arms as I thought back. Soon, I scrounged up a small memory. It wasn't much, but it was something. I looked back at them. "You really want to know? Well . . . I remember a really dark cell. And being in pain."

"Whoa, that _is_ recent history," Fixer said with a tone of near disbelief.

"Rogue," Chevron slowly informed me, "that was _a few hours ago_. We were in the same room for the brainwashing . . ."

He trailed off, and the expression that crossed his face told me that that was one memory that he did _not_ savor. Larra supportively gripped his shoulder, and he glanced back at her with a grateful nod. Deep down, my heart ached. These guys were all family; they all cared about each other. Unless I miraculously recovered from that awful brainwashing, I'd always feel like the outsider, no matter what Chevron said. It no longer seemed to matter that he said I was a scrupulous bounty hunter (I mean, is that even _possible_?) or that I loved him . . . None of it would ever matter unless my memories were returned to me, and that in itself was a long shot. Amnesia was difficult to recover from, _especially_ when it's been forced on you by evil people. But I think I was surprised by the fact that the first thing I could remember was only a few hours old. Maybe I'd been hoping to remember something from my childhood; I don't know. I blinked slowly.

"A few hours? That's it? Oh, _no_ . . ." I let out a moan. "Then I can't remember anything before that . . . ? Except my name . . ."

I turned away and sighed heavily, feeling tears coming to my eyes again. I obviously didn't know how emotional I'd been before this tragedy, but I knew that I was being a huge sap now. But then again, how would _you_ feel if you woke up one day and realized that all the memories you'd treasured and stored up were suddenly simply _gone_? I rubbed my forehead with both of my open palms as if that would coax my brain to cough up those missing memories before glancing back at Chevron.

"You say we were together? Well, that might make it a bit easier, huh?"

I forced a smile, but it faded as he shook his head and fear started creeping in again. I had the feeling that if I didn't remember something—_anything_—soon, I'd go mad with frustration and probably end up in a slump of depression.

"Only a bit, _Ro'ika _. . ." he admitted softly. "I—I can tell you . . . about it . . . what I remember before the drugs started on me . . ."

He heaved a shuddering breath, looking away, and Larra squeezed his shoulder. I heard a heavy footfall nearby and turned to see yet another person appear the scene. This time, judging by the fact that it seemed as if he'd come from the cockpit, I deduced that he was the pilot—and thus the Sevvie that Larra had mentioned. He was leaning against the wall, watching with a grim expression on his face which was so much like everyone else's but looked . . . well, _older_. He looked very much like a stone standing there that it sent shivers of fright down my spine. I couldn't escape the way he was looking at me; it was as if he, too, knew there was something wrong with me. Sighing, I reached over and touched Chevron's arm, bringing his attention back to me.

"I don't guess you have to," I told him, "not if it hurts."

"But it might help her," Boss gently told Chevron. "It's a long shot, but it still could. Who knows what the trigger could be, huh?"

"Okay, _we_ all have remembered things," Sev put in abruptly. "What if Isard actually did one _right_ this time and she _never_ remembers?"

I'm not saying that that thought never crossed my mind, but I hated hearing it out of someone else, so I wheeled around and shot Sev the nastiest death ray glare I knew how to shoot. He looked a bit repentant—and even a bit scared—even before Larra got onto him.

"Don't say that, Aaron!" she barked.

Chevron looked nearly heartbroken as he slowly took a seat at my side, tightly gripping my hand. I bit my lip, feeling sorrier for him than for myself. This was no doubt because he could remember it all and I couldn't, so I had no idea what he was about to tell me of. I couldn't help but feel afraid for both of us. He took a breath and patted the back of my hand.

"It . . . it started with me," he said quietly. "Isard wanted to get to you first and told them to start on me. Her techs . . . stabbed me with needles . . . but I fought. Hard. When . . ." He took a shuddering breath. _I_ squeezed _his_ hand. "When I felt my brain start going filmy, I turned to look at you. I wanted to make sure I could memorize your face. I played back my memories as many times as I could, memorizing everything I could . . . making sure to put big red flags where I remembered my _vode_ . . . and where I had you. I told you to remember for me before the drugs knocked me out, but I was still fighting. And the result . . . I can still remember. How about that, huh?"

He tried to give me a smile, but he looked . . . _pained_. It looked as if all this was excruciatingly hard for him. Larra faintly touched his shoulder as if to remind him that she was still there for him even if I wasn't due to this amnesia issue. I tried to give him a grateful smile; after all, I _was_ thankful that he'd been able to tell me what had happened to me. But he looked so anguished that my smile faded into a heavy sigh.

"I guess I failed you," I whispered. "I think I remember fighting, too . . . but losing."

Tears started welling in my eyes, and I quickly looked away while I blinked them back. I almost thought I heard an exasperated sigh from Sevvie, but I didn't turn to check.

"I don't want to be like this," I admitted, making use of understatement. "It just feels _empty_ . . . like there's a hole where _I_ ought to be." I turned back and shook my head in bewilderment. "What makes someone do this to someone else? What makes them so evil as to steal the things that made someone _human_? If you don't have memories to know who you are and where you've come from . . . then you have nothing and you are nothing. That's the thing that gets me: how could anyone ever be cruel enough to do this?"

"Good question," Larra said. "You can ask Isard that when we've got her strung up and come at her with knives."

_I'll plan on it,_ I thought.

"It's probably because the Empire wants control," Chevron said. I made a mental note that this "Empire" was responsible for this happening to me. "They want domination. And if the dissenters get too noisy . . ."

He shuddered a bit, seeming as if he was forcing several nasty memories back down. Larra glanced at him a moment before turning to Sevvie, who was still leaned up against the wall with the same disgruntled expression on his face. To me, it seemed as if the man had some serious issues, and frankly, I didn't want to be around when those issues were brought out in the open.

"Where're we heading?" she asked.

"Go check yourself," Sevvie growled, and the expressions that came over the others' faces made me think that he wasn't usually that gruff.

Larra arched an eyebrow at him while Chevron shot him an odd look. I noticed a few strange glances get tossed at him from Boss and his group. I felt my hair stand on end as an incredible urge to run away came over me. I had a feeling that this was about to get very nasty very quickly because Larra did _not_ strike me as the sort to let an issue go unresolved.

"Goodness, Sevvie, what's up?" Scorch asked, sounding genuinely concerned. "You haven't been like this in a long, long time."

"Not since Rogue offered to help and you accused her of using it as an excuse to sell us out to the Imps," Boss said in a low tone.

My attention peaked at the mention of my name, and though I had many questions about what he'd just said, I didn't voice them. It seemed to me that this was a much more important situation; after all, Sevvie really did seem as if something was gnawing at him. He shrugged.

"Well, that ain't the problem," he muttered.

"Then what is?" Larra pressed, refusing to let this go.

Sevvie shot her a malevolent glare and motioned emphatically around the room. Something was _really_ ticking him off, and my original urge to run for my life was slowly being supplanted by intrigue. I stayed in my seat, watching the scene unfold. His brows furrowed angrily as fire rose in his eyes.

"Look around," he spat. "There's you, who's growing normally . . . The Deltas! They've been fixed . . . Chevron got himself resurrected from the dead. And look at me." He jabbed a thumb at his face, and I—as I'm sure the others did, as well—noticed that it was slightly lined. Time was taking its toll on him, but something inside me told me that this wasn't just ordinary aging. Past the lines I thought I could see a man the same age as everyone else. Nearby, Boss, Scorch, Sev, and Fixer—the Deltas Sevvie had mentioned—all cringed. Right then I knew something was really, _really_ wrong. Sevvie continued on his angry rampage.

"I live two days for every one you do," he cried, looking truly miserable, "two years for every one!"

I looked around at all the pained expressions and nodded slowly as if I understood. I pursed my lips a moment.

"Oh," I murmured. "That damned growth acceleration . . ."

The words were out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. A nervous shiver ran down my spine as I wondered what I'd just said. What was I talking about? I hadn't _meant_ to say that . . . It just tumbled out. Hoping no one had heard me, I shut my mouth and just looked sympathetically at Sevvie. Scorch heaved a sigh as his shoulders slumped a bit.

"Whoa . . . I'm sorry, Sevvie," he said quietly. "I guess we . . . forgot."

"Oh, yeah, so _EASY_ to forget, now, ain't it, with _Lusankya_ all the kriffin' time!" Sevvie shouted, rage just rolling off him. "But I just stay here, mind the ship, get old! I don't _want_ to be like this!"

He kept venting, but I'm not sure that the others were really paying attention to his angry shouts. And why, you may ask? Well, as he ranted, a faint, sky-blue glow appeared around Larra and began growing into long, finger-like tendrils that reached out for Sevvie, wrapping themselves around him. He never noticed, but the rest of us sure did. Almost simultaneously, all our eyes widened considerably as the tendrils worked their way around him, and none of us could say a word. Scorch opened his mouth as if he was about to _try_ to say something, but Boss took his shoulder and shook his head as a warning to be silent. I was just so transfixed by the scene that I rose to my feet, clutching Chevron's arm. I could tell that he, too, was amazed by what was going on. Nearby, Sev cleared his throat a bit.

"Uh, somethin' tells me you're not gonna be like that," he said.

Sevvie wheeled around, startled.

"Huh?" he asked, confused. "Why—"

He broke off abruptly as he glanced down to see the blue fingers reaching up and around him. Jumping with fear, he quickly tried to either brush or pull them off, but they just tightened their hold. I looked hastily at Larra; she was standing there, looking dazed, as if she wasn't "with it." I noticed also that her eyes were glowing with a faint blue sheen that matched the tendrils climbing up Sevvie . . . He looked completely terrified as the tendrils completely encircled him, making it seem as if he was entangled in a blue cocoon. He struggled, trying to fight it, to break free, but then the cocoon hardened into a protective shell. He looked at us, eyes wide, but then the shell crackled for a few seconds before it simply exploded and vanished without a trace. The explosion itself was almost earth-shaking . . . I clamped my hands to my ears to try to protect them. But as soon as the shell exploded and disappeared, Sevvie crumpled to the floor and rolled into a ball. From where I stood, I couldn't tell if he was shocked or unconscious. Nearby, Larra flopped back onto the floor, semi-awake. She still seemed dazed as we all swarmed over to Sevvie, trying to get him to wake up. I didn't care that I had no memories of him; the whole ordeal still frightened me considerably, so I knelt at his side and gently eased his head into my lap. I figured that when he woke up he should have someone supporting him. I glanced around at all the others, eyebrows furrowed.

"What the frack was that?!" I demanded.

"Who knows?" Boss replied. "Probably some crazy Force happening or something. You'll have to ask the resident Force sensitive."

Resident _whaaa_? I almost asked that very question as Boss jabbed his thumb over his shoulder to where Larra was sagging heavily back against the wall. I looked over at her and nearly opened my mouth to speak, but Scorch reached out and stopped me by grabbing my arm.

"Don't," he advised. "She won't know what you're talking about. Don't worry; happens all the time."

He tossed me a sideways grin which I weakly tried to return as Chevron sank to his knees beside me and gently uncurled Sevvie. As soon as he turned Sevvie's face toward himself and the others, Chevron inhaled sharply and blinked in disbelief. His mouth formed the words "My Force" but nothing came out, so great was his shock. And why? Because the Sevvie he was looking at wasn't the one that had been so angry a few minutes before. This one looked at least _eight years younger_. The lines in his face were completely gone, and he looked almost identical to all the others! I took a surprised breath, as did the Deltas around me.

"_Fierfek_ . . ." Boss breathed. Fixer nodded in agreement.

"My sentiments _exactly_. I don't believe this!"

I brushed a hand across Sevvie's now-smooth, youthful cheek, hardly believing my eyes. Let's face it: when was the last time _you_ watched a glowing blue shell reverse someone's age by nearly ten years? Mm-hmm, that's what I thought.

"My gods, she changed him!" I cried. "She made him younger!"

"Now there's where you're wrong," Scorch informed me. "You see, she's got this ancestor that chose to be reincarnated in her, so every now and then, Lar will do these awesome Force things . . . except it's not her. It's that ancestor."

Then this was one of those "awesome Force things"? I nodded slowly, absorbing this revelation. A tugging in the back of my mind told me that I should just believe what had happened and not spend too much time trying to figure it out, so I did.

"I'm not sure I should believe that," I said, "but I do. Wow."

Across the way, Larra groaned and pushed herself up, shaking out any kinks in her muscles as she stood and walked over to the scene.

"At least she gave me the courtesy to see what was happening," she grumbled, but then her eyes went wide as her gaze fell on Sevvie. "_Fierfek_, she . . . whoa . . ."

She was absolutely speechless; all she could do was stare as Sevvie twitched a bit and began coming to. He struggled to a sitting position, one hand clutching his forehead. For a moment, I was afraid that we would have not one but _two_ amnesiacs running around. He exhaled heavily, coughing a bit.

"Ow, my head . . ." he moaned. "What happened?"

"Well, for one thing," Boss smiled, "you've just had your biological clock turned back about eight years."

"Let me put it simply," Fixer chuckled. "Welcome back, Sevvie!"

"Yeah, _this_ is the guy we know!" Scorch whooped. "_Kandosii_, Lar's great-to-the-_x_-power grandmother!"

"That was . . . the most amazing thing I ever saw!" I exclaimed, clapping him happily across the shoulder. Hey, for a girl who didn't even know who she was, I was doing pretty good at this cheerfulness business, wasn't I?

Instantly, Sevvie's face took on that startled expression as he leaped up and ran off to the 'fresher to check a mirror. We all chuckled at the speed with which he scrambled out of there, but as our laughter died down and the initial shock from the event faded, Chevron reached over and took my hand.

"Rogue," he began, his eyes carefully watching me, "you remembered the growth acceleration."

I looked at him, blinking.

"_Whaaa?_"


	14. Mind Wracking

**Chapter Thirteen – Mind-Wracking**

Well, that was a little bombshell. Apparently my memory wasn't totally screwed if I'd remembered something. But then again, what the heck was growth acceleration? Oh well.

I tilted my head, thinking back over the past few minutes. My brain must have _really_ been knocked for a loop, because I was having a little trouble remembering that recent history. I furrowed my brows before glancing at Chevron.

"I did?" I asked, and he nodded. "Huh. Well, I guess I did . . . I don't know why . . . It was just . . . there. Right out in the open. Like I was _supposed_ to remember."

"Well, that's a good sign, right?" Sev questioned.

"Let's hope," Boss nodded.

"It _is_ a good sign," Larra said. "A very good sign."

She beamed at me, and I cracked a grin, still keeping with my "be cheerful and look like nothing's wrong" plan. Just then, Sevvie returned to us, looking very disbelieving and perhaps a bit unsteady on his feet. He looked at us, sighed, then shook his head.

"I don't believe it," he stammered. "_How?_ I mean . . . I didn't deserve it . . ."

"You must've," Larra told him, "otherwise she wouldn't have started on you."

The Deltas nodded and grinned at him, reaching out and enthusiastically clapping him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, don't you believe in miracles, Sevvie?" Fixer asked with a chuckle.

"Besides," Scorch added, "it wouldn't be fair for all of us to live happily ever after and you not get the chance to, either."

"And you should never look a gift ronto in the mouth," I told him, snickering and grinning despite my wondering how I knew what a ronto was.

Somehow, even with all our assurances, Sevvie still looked nervous and more than a little uncomfortable. Larra laughed at the pitiful look on his face as she reached over and patted his arm.

"Don't worry, _vod_," she assured him. "I bet you're just like the rest of us now. It happens a lot."

Sevvie chuckled, a bit nervously. The next moment, Chevron so casually reminded everyone that I was still the main problem by gently putting his arm around me. I couldn't help but nestle a bit into his shoulder. His embrace was so warm and so comforting . . . I actually felt safe. I felt as if my memory loss didn't really matter to him. I felt _wanted_, and that was nice. But warm, fuzzy feelings aside, I still wanted my memories back. No way was the Empire or that Isard woman going to get away with this obscenity! Chevron lightly hugged me before speaking.

"So, you remembered the growth acceleration," he said. "Anything attached to it?"

I chewed at my index fingernail as all eyes turned to me. The Deltas took seats on benches around the room, as did Sevvie and Larra. I knew they were all watching me, waiting to see what I would say. Quite honestly, it felt as if I was on trial before a biased jury. Adrenaline started pumping, and I chewed harder at my nails. Chevron squeezed my shoulder as if to tell me to calm down, and I sighed before closing my eyes for a moment and silently repeating the words "growth acceleration" to myself over and over. Before long, there was a fragment of an image even though it made my head throb to think about it for long periods of time.

"Well . . ." I began, "I keep seeing a lot of white. Very sterile place . . . like a mental institution. And there are lots of people, but . . . their faces are fuzzy."

I sighed and shook my head, counting this as a failure, but Larra's body snapped to a rigid posture and Chevron beamed at me.

"Kamino . . . you remember Kamino!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, is _that_ what it's called?" I asked casually, trying to be cool and suave. But that failed miserably as my smile faded and my brows furrowed again. Hello, amnesia-induced headaches. I sighed. "But what good does it do me to remember all that white only to not be able to find any importance in it? I go looking for a reason _why_, but there's nothing. _Why_ do I remember it?"

"Because," Chevron explained, "for a good long while, it was our home." He waved around at the others, and I took time to study each face only to come up blank. "All of us lived there; we were your friends. Although you first met Larra by running into her and ticking her off."

"Extremely," Larra nodded. "It was a good fight."

"I'll bet I lost, didn't I?" I asked, noting the triumphant smirk on Larra's face.

The Delta boys snickered as if remembering said fight, and inside, I felt like I would cry because they could remember things I couldn't. I knew it probably wasn't my fault that this had happened, but it still felt that way. Talk about guilt!

"Ohh, well, I wouldn't say you _lost_," Scorch grinned. "Maybe just got your _shebs_ handed to you a bit."

I laughed in spite of myself when he said that, and he beamed, proud of himself. I didn't blame him; he'd made the resident amnesiac laugh for the first time! He had every reason to be proud. But I noticed that Boss leaned over to Larra and whispered something to her before she turned and whispered back to him. I raised an eyebrow, for they were speaking so quietly that I couldn't hear them, and I knew that if I could hear the quiet beeping of the panels in the cockpit, then I had pretty good hearing. After a moment, Larra turned back and spoke in a normal voice to me.

"Yeah, you got your _shebs_ handed to you, but it got broken up just as we had our _kade_ out . . . and ready to dice ourselves to little bitty bits."

"Well, I guess that was a good thing, huh?" I chuckled. "Wouldn't want to get sliced in two."

I noticed then that a look passed from Boss to Larra and that the others' eyebrows had gone sky-high. I glanced around at them, feeling suddenly very nervous and quite agitated. What was going on? What was with all the strange looks? All my nerves went on alert, and I dug my short nails into my palms as I clenched my fists. This was getting insanely irritating and more than a little frustrating!

"Rogue," Chevron said gently, "is there a reason you can understand what they're saying? Or . . . would you be able to speak something in it?"

I shot him a glare as hundreds of words came bubbling up in my mind. And ironically, I knew what each one meant. I knew how to pronounce it, and I felt like they'd all just come rolling off my tongue at any moment. So they wanted to hear me speak, huh? Well, I could oblige them. Arf, arf. There, I spoke.

"You mean I _shouldn't_ understand?" I spat. "Like I'm some sort of brainless _di'kut_ who was born last night?!" My eyes flashed and narrowed, and I saw Chevron straighten a bit, almost in fear. Well, whoop-de-do for him. I didn't care. I was getting irritated. (Of course, it never occurred to me that I was speaking a language that should've been erased from my memory.) "Just _what_ did you mean, huh? What all do you _want_ me to say?"

"Easy, Rogue," Chevron soothed, reaching out to pat my hand. Across the way, Sevvie blinked.

"Okay," he said, disbelief evident in his tone, "you've just been brainwashed, yet you can still speak Mando'a? You don't remember any of us, but you know about Kamino and the growth acceleration?"

I sighed and sat back on my heels, closing my eyes in inhaling deeply as I pushed some loose strands of hair from my eyes. As soon as my eyes were closed, I saw all that white again. I saw all those faceless people, and my head began pounding as I figured it always would until whenever destiny decided it would be okay for me to die. I rubbed my face with my hands, massaging my forehead, until I opened my eyes and looked around. I arched an eyebrow at the expression on Sevvie's face and sighed thinly through my nose.

"Something tells me you all have been expecting me to be completely clean," I grumbled. Well, I guess they were right. After all, it was rare—happening next to never, really—that someone would remember things after such a thorough brainwashing. I frowned, feeling irritation swell in me. "_Mando'ad draar digu_, okay?!"

"A Mandalorian never forgets." I hadn't expected those words to come flying out of me, and I instantly clapped my hands over my mouth as my eyes went wide with shock and I jumped in fright. Beside me, Chevron and Larra's faces lit up, and I began trembling a bit in surprise. Sevvie's eyebrows shot skyward, and I heard some whispers from the Deltas.

"Whoa . . ." Larra breathed excitedly. "Isard hasn't wiped it all out! You've got a chance, Rogue! _You've got a chance!_"

To me, having one chance was better than nothing at all. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to celebrate this as a milestone, but I couldn't. Suddenly, I felt cynical and wondered if Isard had purposefully left the things I _did_ remember—such as that white place—Kamino—and Mando'a—untouched. I wondered if perhaps she had left those things so that whenever it came time to make me do her bidding (after all, that _had_ to be her plan, no?) I would know things useful to the jobs she assigned me to. Chevron had said I was a scrupulous bounty hunter . . . Isard had probably wanted to make me the cruelest, most bloodthirsty bounty hunter in the galaxy. I sighed, brushing a hand through my hair.

"You . . . you think so?" I asked warily. "But there's so much missing . . . So many blank spots . . . Other than the white and the faceless people and the words . . . I don't have a whole lot to go on."

"But you have more than nothing!" Scorch exclaimed. "You _do_ have a chance!"

He bounced a bit in excitement, beaming at me. I tilted my head, thinking. If it was possible to recover my memories, I could take down Isard and all those associated with her. I'd show her that you can't keep someone down just by stripping their memories from them! In spite of myself, I felt a sudden flame of hope in my heart, and I chewed at my bottom lip for a moment.

"Y'think... really?" I asked. They all nodded, and that flame of hope grew a bit brighter despite the fact that I didn't want to get my hopes up only to have them dashed by tragedy. "Whoa . . . Better get cracking at it, then!"

"Yes, definitely!" Chevron enthused. "Can't risk not going at it now and having you forget again!"

"Well," I mused, "if there's the chance that _all_ my memories didn't get erased . . . then we should get started. Interrogations, anyone?"

I snickered a bit despite the sudden feeling of dread that came over me. I mean, I got stabbing headaches just _thinking_ about things I couldn't remember. Just trying to hunt down that memory of Kamino and the armored people made me feel as if I would pass out at any second. It seemed as if ever trying to garner memories would result in pain so excruciating that it was as if someone was setting off grenades behind my eyes. Just thinking about those headaches made me almost nauseous, and I think it showed on my face, because Chevron reached over and gently held my hand. I looked at him, smiling gratefully, and he smiled back.

"Okay, where's a good place to start . . ." he began but trailed off.

"Well," Larra began, "if we can start on Kamino . . . None of us knew her before then, I think."

"Good thinking," Chevron nodded, and I got the sudden feeling that everyone was talking over my head.

"Right," Boss agreed. "Whatever comes before that, she'll have to remember on her own." He smiled apologetically at me. "Sorry."

"It's okay," I shrugged, but I didn't _really_ think it was. "It'd probably just be stupid things I did as a kid, anyway. I mean, what if I set myself on fire or something? Would I _really_ want to remember that?" Nearby, Scorch chuckled a bit, but I ignored him for the most part. "I don't even know where to start . . . I keep hoping one of you will say something to jog my mind."

Chevron gazed mournfully at me as I slowly rubbing my throbbing temples with my middle fingers, exhaling heavily. Just thinking about retrieving memories was beginning to hurt . . . I knew I probably wouldn't be able to do this for long before I'd need to go find some painkillers or something to dull the pounding. I thought back a bit, mulling over the white memory some more.

"Yeah," I continued, "there's a lot of white and a bunch of faceless, armored people, but we've been over that. I'm just trying to see what's behind it and the reason why all those folks' faces are blurry."

"It's probably because they didn't make a huge impact on you," Fixer suggested.

"Also the fact that most of those faces must've been beacons—norm troops in civvie-speak," Larra added. "However . . . Rogue, can you remember a group that was a bit more . . . colorful?"

At my side, Chevron chuckled lightly, and farther away, Sevvie smirked a bit. I just sighed and closed my eyes a moment, trying to think. I didn't think it was possible for drugs and chemicals to erase a person's memories so fully, so completely . . . I exhaled tightly as the pounding in my head worsened. I kept going, trying to cruise through my broken mind and find something, _anything_, to help. But there was nothing. I kept trying anyway.

"I—I don't know," I said slowly, my eyes opening again. "It hurts a lot to try to remember."

"Hey, any one of us will tell ya not to strain _too_ hard," Scorch offered. "It gets a little rough on the neurons, know what I mean?"

Beside him, Sev chuckled darkly.

"As if he'd notice a few mismatched neurons . . ."

"Hey, be nice," Boss warned as Scorch tried to make a lunge for Sev. "We're in this for _Rogue_, not for making digs at each other."

I looked up and studied each of their faces, hoping that looking at them for a while would somehow jog a memory. But there was nothing . . . Nothing in their faces, their eyes, or their mannerisms stirred any thoughts, any recollections. I sighed and apologetically shook my head.

"Sorry," I said. "Nothin'. I'm blank."

(There was no pun intended in that, I swear!) Boss nodded a bit and folded his arms over his chest, looking somewhat thoughtful.

"To be expected," he said. "But still not good."

"You're tellin' me," I sighed, feeling depression sink a claw into me.

Chevron gently put his arms around me, cradling me to himself for a moment as if that would heal my mind. I just let out a breath and rested my head against his shoulder. Suddenly, the galaxy felt so empty and I felt so . . . alone. It was a dark feeling that I had, thinking—_knowing_—that I'd never truly know my own identity.

"Hey, it's all right," Chevron whispered into my ear; I didn't fully believe him. "We can try elsewhere; no knowin' what kinda trigger there'll be."

"Yeah, and we've got a long way till we hit Ord Mantell," Sevvie said. "That's the second-best place to find a good slicer."

"What's the best place?" Larra asked him.

"Corellia, but we all caught Imp eyes."

". . . Point taken."

I sighed, furrowing my brows a bit. Slicer . . . ? Why did we need a slicer? There was no way a _slicer_ would be able to help me . . . But at least I knew where we were headed. But at that moment, I felt like crying. I felt like curling up in a corner and sobbing until my tears ran dry. It was as if two anvils had settled on me: one on my shoulders and the other on my chest, flattening, squeezing, constricting my lungs until I couldn't breathe. I think it was a lot of despair that was slowly getting inside me, overwhelming me from the inside out. It made a dull ache beside my heart, and, so desperate for help, for something to cling to, I turned around and put my arms around Chevron's neck. He was the closest person I could hold on to, and besides; he was already holding me. He seemed a bit surprised as I buried my face in his armored shoulder to hide the welling tears, but he patted my back and murmured a gentle word of encouragement. After a moment, I pulled back, sniffling a bit. I noticed I'd left a bit of a wet spot on his shoulder guard . . . I turned and looked at the others and found that they all had sympathetic looks on their faces. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and took a breath before even daring to open my mouth.

"I don't know . . ." I said, my voice a bit shaky. "Maybe it'll just take . . . time . . . but what if I _never_ remember?"

My eyebrows creased with worry, and Scorch darted over to my side, crouching down and taking my shoulder. I think he was afraid I'd have a meltdown. Nevertheless, I was grateful for another soothing hand.

"Hey, look, there's no room for pessimism on this ship," he said firmly. I was a bit surprised; he hadn't seemed like the sort to be that firm. "You'll remember. It would seem that the Imps have trouble wiping a Fett memory."

_Fett._ That sounded awfully familiar . . . I took a deep breath, bracing myself against the pounding that I knew my head would unleash on me if I dared to think. I bit my bottom lip.

"Why does that name sound familiar?" I asked.

"Uh . . . 'cause it's your last name?" Sev offered.

"No kidding?" I furrowed my brows a bit, thinking. Another fuzzy, distorted image popped up in my head, but I couldn't make it out. It was far too unrecognizable. "Hm. Well, I guess it _would_ help to know my own name . . . But no, it's more that that. Like there's a face attached to it . . . like I should remember a face."

"Well," Larra began, "there's me; there's your traitor brother, Boba . . . and then there's Jango."

She spat out that last name as if it was laced with poison, and Chevron noticed.

"You sound like you developed a grudge against him," he observed.

"Private and personal," Larra grumbled. "Nobody's business."

"Great," I muttered, sarcastically rolling my eyes. "I've got a traitorous brother. Just what I _always_ wanted. Guess he's the _dear soul_ who got my mind whacked out, huh?"

"Well, no," Boss replied to my surprise. "But he's responsible for getting you captured a couple times before this."

"Wow," I exclaimed. "When you say 'traitor brother,' you mean it!"

"Aw, c'mon," Scorch moaned nearby. "Tell us which face the name goes to, huh? This is getting boring!"

At that statement, Sev promptly elbowed him in the gut, evoking a wheeze and a growl from him. I furrowed my brows in thought, concentrating on that hazy image in my mind despite the awful headache that was coming on.

"I don't know . . ." I said slowly, trying to hold the image in my head. I tried to get it to focus, and _very_ slowly, it seemed to be, if only a little. "I just see a very fuzzy face, like it's really distorted . . . No, no, _no_ . . . _Dammit!_"

With a heavy sigh of distress, I slumped forward and buried my face in my hands. Chevron reached over and gently rubbed my back, and Larra came over and knelt down in front of me, grabbing my hands and giving them a squeeze.

"Don't give up," she said. "You try to get that face to focus, even if I have to ask Sevvie to get into your profile and dredge up pictures of every single person who's been in your life."

_Well, _that'd_ make things easier,_ I thought dejectedly.

I took a shaky breath and looked up, trying desperately not to cry. But to be honest, I was quickly losing hope. I knew it'd only been a short while since I'd begun trying to remember, but perhaps I'd started out with expectations that were set too high. I suppose I'd anticipated a miracle without stopping to consider the pitfalls of such a wish. But could I really help it? Were you I, you probably would have done everything in your power to regain your memories, too. I looked at Larra and shook my head slowly.

"No . . . no, it's not that," I said, feeling my bottom lip begin trembling faintly. "I lost it. It's . . . gone. Just . . . _erased_. And I was _so_ close . . . I almost had it! I almost had a clear picture!"

I buried my face in my hands again, and I didn't have to be a psychic or a Jedi to tell that sympathetic glances were being exchanged among the group. I almost, _almost_ felt anger at that. I almost looked up and screamed "I don't want your frackin' sympathy!" at the top of my lungs. I guess that was true . . . I didn't want sympathy, but I wanted _help_. I managed to let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding as Chevron continued to rub my back, trying to get me calmed down. I felt my shoulder and back muscles loosen a bit, and I allowed myself to slouch, but I didn't look up until Boss spoke.

"But what did you see before . . ."

He trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say. He was going to say "before it vanished" or something to that extent, but he showed tact by not saying it and creating a potentially violent situation in case I suddenly just snapped. I looked up, chewing at my bottom lip for a moment.

"Well," I began slowly. "It was a man . . . wearing a—a blue tunic, I think. But I was so _close_ to getting his face to focus!"

I slumped my shoulders forward, but they straightened when I noticed the glance that passed among the others. Chevron muttered something that essentially reiterated my recollection of the blue tunic, and Larra drummed her fingers on her chin a moment before nodding.

"That points to Jango," she said, and I desperately wanted to say "Who?" "All our non-armor clothes were red in our age groups, unless it was a younger clone . . . but I doubt it."

Sevvie shrugged, turned around, and headed for the cockpit. I figured he'd gotten bored with the situation, and frankly, I didn't really blame him. My nerves were getting raw, and I felt as if I would go stark raving _nuts_ any second. I sat there for a long time in complete silence, thinking as hard as my head would allow. I tried again to remember the face that went with the blue tunic and who this Jango fellow was. But then I dropped that as I remembered a name and a place that made me sick at my stomach just to think about. I looked up and around at the group.

"Let me ask you all a question. How hard was it for you all to get into _Lusankya_ and spring me?"

I noticed that Larra started considerably, and I raised an eyebrow in surprise and question. For a moment, she looked at me as if I'd just start spouting all sorts of things.

"Okay, and you just remembered _Lusankya_ . . ." she mumbled.

"Well, I do know that y'all were quick to come get us," Chevron said. Larra shrugged.

"Yeah, well, we've had experience with _Lusankya_ before."

I tilted my head, and I knew I was looking at her as if chiding her for not expecting me to remember the name of . . . "that place." In reality, I was startled that I'd been able to pull that name out of near-thin air. But I knew that with that name came sensations of pain, fear, anger . . . It was a horrible place, and I knew I'd been there just by the fact that I could clearly smell rubbing alcohol and antiseptics and that I could feel the instantaneous, burning pricks of dozens of needles. I had fuzzy memories of a dark, cold place filled with horrible people doing horrible things to me. And one of them had two differently colored eyes—one red, one blue. She was laughing in the midst of the hazy memories of pain and terror. I shuddered a bit violently, and Chevron clamped a firm hand on my shoulder. Nearby, Boss shrugged in answer to my original question.

"It wasn't too hard," he said. Scorch had a pass card he'd swiped a while back, so we used it to get in."

"Actually," Fixer interjected, "it was a piece of cake. Almost too easy."

"That's what I mean," I said, knowing fully that I was steering clear of the subject of my memory issues. "You know what I think? I think somebody figured you'd come for us, so they let you take us without a fight. And why? Because they knew they'd get us back."

"So we're being followed?" Sev asked. I nodded, wondering where I was digging up this knowledge.

"More than likely."

Ooh, insert ominous music here. Sarcasm aside, I really was nervous that we were being chased and that all those awful, painful memories would become real again. I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands. Frankly, I didn't want to get caught again, though I didn't quite know what I meant by "again." I _did_ know that I wanted to get lost in the crowd so that if the horrible people who'd hurt me and stripped my memories away wouldn't catch me and try to harm me again. It was a matter of self-preservation; a tingling in the back of my mind told me I'd been quite decent at that once. I was about to open my mouth with the universal question of "Are we there yet?" when Sevvie's voice came over the intercom and gave us an E.T.A. of two days, hopefully less if all went well. I hadn't thought it'd take that long, so I asked about it. He explained that he was hoping to trick the Empire by taking the long route to Ord Mantell. Larra then mentioned that Chevron still had a tracking chip (what the Force?!) that needed to be disabled, and there was a pause from Sevvie before he apologized and informed us that the course had been set for a long time. I grumbled beneath my breath before muttering that I'd been hoping for an E.T.A. of fifteen minutes. Scorch smiled at me, ever the optimist.

"Hey, don't worry," he said brightly. "We'll get there in due time, and we'll be home free from the Imps. I'm certain of it."

I looked up at him, and from the way his smile faded when he looked at me, I figured he'd seen my inner nervousness in my eyes. But he came over and patted my shoulder before he and the other Deltas rose from their seats and dispersed throughout the ship to find things with which to bide their time until we reached our destination. Larra went to the cockpit to check on Sevvie, and I noticed then that Chevron and I were all alone. I looked over at him, saw him intently watching me, and got a bit embarrassed. I felt my cheeks grow hot, so I quietly told him I was tired and asked if there was a bunk I could have. He led me to a dormitory on one end of the ship and showed me where the spare blankets and pillows were. I was just about to go get a bunk set up when he leaned over and quickly kissed me on the cheek before turning and hurrying away. I'll admit, I stood there with wide eyes for at least five minutes before finally coming around and shaking it off. After all, he _had_ said that, in my pre-amnesia life, I'd loved him, so I supposed he had every right to do that . . . But still, it surprised me a great deal, and I was so very shocked that I dove into an empty bunk and pulled a blanket over my head. I lay there for a few minutes before his words from earlier came back to me: _"Your name is Rogue Fett. You're a bounty hunter with scruples, and you love me. You've had a couple fights with Larra and made up afterward. We're all friends here . . . We're your _vode_."_

Rogue Fett. Was that really me? I knew my name was Rogue, but beyond that . . . I still held out hope that since he said everyone on board was my friend and brother (or in Larra's case, my sister; not biologically, of course, but you knew that), they'd somehow be able to work together to return my memories to me. But I was filled with uncertainty and a feeling of depression as I realized I barely knew who I was. Anxious for an identity, I repeated Chevron's words to myself, trying them on for size. I needed to know who I was, and if that didn't work, then I'd be who they told me I was.

"My name is Rogue Fett. I'm a bounty hunter with scruples, and I love you. I've had a couple fights with Larra and made up afterward. We're all friends here . . . You're my _vode_."

I whispered those words to myself until I eventually sobbed myself to sleep.


	15. Dashed Hopes and Techno Searches

**Chapter Fourteen – Dashed Hopes and Techno Searches**

Over the next two days, I did little more than concentrate on bringing back the hazy memories stashed in the back of my head. Sometimes I'd think so hard that I'd get a skull-splitting headache, and I'd have to crawl into bed in time to pass out. Other days I'd sit down with a notepad and a writing utensil and scrawl "Rogue Fett" across it for hours. I know that on more than one occasion I went to bed to try to calm a pounding, gale-force hurricane only to wake up later and find a stack of doodled-on papers beside my bunk. I always knew, when that happened, that I'd just left my notepad pages scattered across the main hold while I staggered to my bunk in time to sink into the welcome relief of unconsciousness. I don't know how many times in those two days I passed out, but I know it was a lot. It was enough to ease the pain, to make me forget the trouble I was having trying to remember.

I'm not afraid to admit that during those two days, I slipped into depression. I tried to stay away from that; I thought I wasn't the sort to become depressed, but I was wrong. Several times a day Larra and Chevron would take me aside and ask me questions to see if I could recall anything. She would sometimes use her Force powers to go inside my mind and see if there was anything, but there never was. It was always a blank, dark expanse. At first, I tried to keep a cheerful outlook by saying, "Oh, well! Next time!" and go about my day. But each time I grew steadily worse. Cheerfulness melted into frustration, and frustration turned into tears. Tears eventually paired with frustration and became anger. I'm ashamed to say that once I blew up at Chevron. It happened when I didn't make it to my bunk before a fainting spell came on. I knew I'd been trying too hard; that was why I couldn't stagger out of the main hold before I collapsed. I don't know how long I was out, but it was long enough to fill me with a shriek of misery that needed urgently to come out. I wanted to let that shriek out because while I was unconscious, all I felt was silent blackness. There were no memories floating by, as I'd hoped there'd be, no fragments . . . nothing. It was as if I'd been abandoned in a dark, lonely corner of the universe. It was a corner so small, so cramped, that I couldn't stand up and I couldn't stretch out. I was just squeezed in the darkness, all alone, not knowing myself. And then there was Chevron, begging me to wake up. Well, I did, and that shriek came out as a jumbled, incoherent mess of angry rantings and hurtful swear words. I screamed at him until I went hoarse, and then I stormed out of the room, went to my bunk, and cried. I awoke late that night with the sensation that I'd dozed off and he'd crept in, tucked a blanket around me, and planted a gentle, forgiving kiss on my cheek. I cried again, knowing I didn't deserve him if he loved me despite my memory loss. That only made the depression worse.

That night, when the rest of the ship was sound asleep, I crept around. I guess I was exploring, trying to find whatever I could that might jog something in my head, but I didn't find anything more than a beat-up set of black and silver armor that looked ever so faintly familiar. In spite of myself, I took pity on it and hauled it away to the cargo hold. I don't know how I knew how, but I patched all the holes and managed to find some paint to touch it up a bit. I just knew that it looked a heck of a lot better when I was finished, and then, overcome by a strange sensation of familiarity, I shed the tunic and trousers I'd been wearing and slipped the armor on. It fit perfectly, oddly enough, and I wondered if it hadn't been mine in my pre-amnesia life. I made a mental note to ask Chevron and Larra about it in the morning. But even that armor didn't stir any memories, and it was all I could do to hold in the blood-curdling scream of frustration that was just begging to come hurtling out of my lungs. I held it in, trying to swallow it as I set off across the ship in search of more clues to my identity. Somehow, I eventually ended up in the cargo hold and rummaged through there a bit. Well, I didn't find any memory-jogging things . . . but underneath one of the seats, I found a dusty bottle of Corellian whiskey. At first, I didn't think anything of it, but then a little voice popped up in the back of my mind, whispering that if I drank some, I'd feel better about everything that was going on. It said that the stuff would take the pain away, and you know what? I was so desperate for a solution that I believed that stupid little voice. I settled down in the co-pilot's seat and popped the cork on the bottle, and though I'd only intended to take a couple sips before putting it away and never touching it again, I drank half the bottle. I hadn't meant to, but . . . it _did_ ease the pain. It eased it just fine until I awoke in the morning with a pounding head and a churning stomach. But no one ever found out what I'd done, because I so cleverly acted as if the headache and nausea were just adverse side effects of a night spent in deep thought. No one ever mentioned the bottle being half-empty, either, so I guess they never found it.

I knew it was wrong, but I'd done it anyway. I knew I probably should have gone to Chevron, Larra, or one of the others and asked for help, but I was just so desperate for a quick fix to all my problems that I didn't stop to consider the consequences it could have on me. I just ignored that and drank that stuff anyway. But I guess the evil consequences caught up to me eventually, because I was still trying to sleep it off when we landed on Ord Mantell. It was nearly nighttime, so we didn't go off hunting for somebody to take care of Chevron's chip. We just settled into a local hotel for the night. I don't remember much, since I was "boozed out," after all, but I do know that Chevron carried me while I mumbled incoherently about pretty flowers and blue skies. I even heard Larra mutter something along the lines of "If I didn't know better, I'd say she's drunk." Oh, if only you knew, Larra. If only you knew.

I slept for another day or so, and when I awoke, Larra and Chevron were waiting for me. They said that it was time to try to call up some memories again, that perhaps my sleep had given my mind enough time to rest. Albeit reluctantly, I subjected myself to their "interrogations" and Larra's rather gentle mind prodding. I guess I was expecting for something to come up, but there was nothing, as usual. I tumbled into Chevron's arms, sobbing, because I suddenly had the horrible feeling that I was beyond the point of getting help. I'll admit, I was beginning to get more than a little surprised that no one had told me to get a grip and quite feeling sorry for myself. I just know that I received more than one sympathetic look from the Delta boys.

We'd been on Ord Mantell for two days when Boss brought up Chevron's chip one night while we were at dinner. I noticed how the table fell quiet, though I didn't say anything. I was sitting there sipping a Corellian ale, and no one said anything, oddly, but Larra kept shooting me strange glances that made me eventually push the mug aside. Boss mentioned how we needed to get Chevron's chip disabled or else the Empire would track us to Ord Mantell and not even waste the time it would take to recapture us; they would save themselves the trouble and just kill us, he said. That put a tight knot in my stomach that absolutely would not go away. For some reason, I was afraid. I knew it had something to do with those awful feelings of fear and pain I was prone to experiencing whenever the word "_Lusankya_" came up in conversation that I probably wasn't meant to hear. It went right in hand with those sensations. So that night, after dinner, I made the suggestion that we try to find a slicer. Sevvie and Fixer had been trying for a couple of days but had come up with nothing, yet all of a sudden, I had the feeling that we would succeed that night. Call me crazy, but I did. Not to mention that it was a fresh change of pace from either wracking my mind until I passed out or being insanely depressed. So I guess I was walking along, looking a bit happier than I had (or at least more cheerful), when Chevron suddenly came up beside me in that shadow-like way that he has from time to time. I looked at him, and he looked back.

"Y'know . . ." he began slowly, "if you don't remember much, I can always tell you about . . . stuff."

I gazed apologetically at him; apparently I wasn't the only one in pain anymore. His pain was so evident in his eyes that as he looked at me, brows furrowed, I could almost feel it rolling off him like torrents of Kaminoan rain. (I _had_ remembered the awful weather, you see.) Part of me wanted to snap at him and bark, "_If_ I don't remember?!" The other part wanted to hug him and just tell him I was sorry for being a huge, angsty _mir'sheb_ who obviously thought she knew everything and could see far enough into the future to declare that she would never regain her memories. There was a little voice in my head that was telling me that I was right to think I'd never remember, but I told it to shut the frack up. There was a faint, glimmering flame of hope in me that wanted to come out and burn brightly, so I allowed it some theoretical oxygen.

"It'd be a help," I admitted softly. I actually hadn't explored that possibility yet. "But I'm sure you only know so much before we get into memories that only I would be able to know. It's okay . . . I'll try to remember. Eventually. Or I could just build new memories and a new identity to replace the lost ones."

I offered a weak smile, but he just sighed and shook his head, and I noticed that he fell back to where Larra and the others were. I hung my head a bit, closing my eyes a moment and trying not to cry. I bit my lip until it was sore, sniffling as quietly as I could. I could tell he didn't want to lose me . . . Even though I didn't truly know who I was, I didn't want to lose me, either. Behind me, I heard Larra move to Chevron's side, so I turned a careful ear to what she said even though I knew I probably shouldn't have.

"You all right, Chev?" she asked gently. He just shrugged.

"What if she _can't_ remember?" he sighed. "At all?"

"Then we make do," Larra replied. "We have to. But I'm hoping for the best."

The possibility that I might never recover my memories had indeed crossed my mind a dozen times; it was the horrible thought that had pushed me to getting drunk. I hoped that everyone still didn't know that was what had truly happened. I had even been so clever (yeah, _right_) to brush my teeth right before I climbed into bed so there wouldn't be the smell of whiskey on my breath. Behind me, I heard Boss step up between Larra and Chevron, and a quick glance over my shoulder told me that he had one hand on each of their shoulders.

"I think we got lucky with the rest of us," he murmured, and my heart sped up. "The rest of us"? What, had he and everyone else been through this, too? So I wasn't so alone all of a sudden? "The worst we've ever had to deal with was me . . . I don't think we're prepared for this one. The best we might get is that she readily remembered her name and has fuzzy memories of Kamino. I mean, she doesn't even remember her father except for the color of his tunic . . . But she's tough; she may have a chance. I mean, she _has_ to be tough to have taken on an ARC and nearly won, right?"

He flashed a grin at Larra, and I turned back around, thinking. What he'd said about me taking on an ARC sounded familiar. For one thing, I easily translated the acronym into three words: Advanced Recon Commando. I guess I pulled that out of thin air, but I knew that at that moment, I had a two-second flash of motion in which I saw a swirl of navy blue, black, and a shade of green that looked startlingly like the tunic I'd been wearing before I found that armor. (Speaking of which, I had gotten several second glances from the others, but only Chevron had dared ask why I was wearing it.) There was a gleam of light like the reflection off the blades of swords, and then it all was gone. I sighed, but then I heard what Larra was saying to Boss.

"Keyword there 'nearly,'" she chuckled wryly. "And the first time we never properly finished; the second time I was outta my head."

"I hope you're right, Ace—Boss, sorry." Chevron looked a bit sheepish. Boss just smiled.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I still feel like I'm on the verge of calling Larra 'Stick' from time to time."

He laughed faintly as he and the others came up behind me, and I turned and looked at them as if I hadn't heard a word of what they'd said. I nodded a bit of a greeting.

"Took y'all long enough to catch up," I said.

"A bit of conversation," Boss replied pleasantly.

I nodded slowly before looking around and asking where we were going. Fixer brought up Chevron's chip again and looked as if he sank deep into thought concerning how and where we'd find someone to take care of this little issue. We walked along in silence for several minutes, and with each step, I realized just how pathetically I'd been acting. I suppose I was feeling the need to apologize, so that was exactly what I did.

"Listen, guys, you don't need to try so hard for me," I said, garnering several raised eyebrows. "It's not like I don't appreciate the assist, but . . . you don't need to go out of your ways for me."

"It's not like I don't appreciate the assist"? Was I stark raving _bonkers_?! If you haven't noticed lately, I was being a huge _shebs_. I was being stubborn and selfish . . . as if that half-bottle of Corellian whiskey I drank didn't clue you in. Larra reached over and grabbed my upper arm, nodding fiercely.

"Yes, we _DO_!" she replied, making me blush with embarrassment. "Trust me, at least me and Chev owe you enough to be doing this. You saved me from going totally nuts, and Chev here was your boyfriend before he was killed and then re-cloned by the Imps."

"You didn't have to bring _that_ up," Chevron muttered.

"Hey, it's true," Larra shrugged.

Something went off in the back of my head. It was another of those two-second flashes like the time that I saw the swirls of black, navy, and green. This time, I saw a darkened hallway, and Chevron and I were in it. He was leaning very close to me, my eyes were closed . . . Then, just like that, it was gone again. I shot Chevron a brief glance and felt my jaw go a bit slack. I hadn't intended for that to happen, so I snapped it shut as quickly as I could, but Scorch noticed it first.

"What?" he asked. "What do you remember now?"

"N—nothing," I lied. "It's just . . . That sounded more familiar than usual . . . about him and me."

"It should," Sev replied with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "You two were practically makin' out all the time."

He snickered, but all he got for that comment was Boss's elbow driven sharply into his stomach. He wheezed, and while I normally would've chuckled at seeing justice be served, I instead turned away as I felt my face grow hot. Trying not to look . . . well, _obvious_, I lightly pressed a hand to my cheek and quickly pulled it away from the flush of embarrassment. It didn't matter to me that my memory was still incredibly hazy; the mental images that cropped up after Sev's comment were unbearably humiliating. And, of course, there was the usual issue of not really remembering Chevron. Beside me, Larra flashed Sev a nasty glare as Chevron moved to my side and squirmed his hand into mine. He clutched my hand protectively, giving it a squeeze. I looked up at him and again saw the pain in his eyes. It was difficult to keep looking at him when all I could see was anguish and misery. After a moment, he took a somewhat shaky breath and spoke.

"Yeah . . . it's okay. I mean . . . if you don't remember, then I guess . . . well, I hate to use this metaphor, but I guess I'll live if you . . ."

He trailed off and suddenly looked quickly away. I think he was trying to hide the tears that were welling in his eyes from me, but I saw them anyway. I caught a glimpse of them in the light of the Ord Mantellian street lamps, and I bit my lip. I don't think he was expecting anyone to notice, but one member of the group did: Sevvie.

"Oooohhh . . ." he crooned. "Lover-boy's losing his _cyar'ika_ . . ."

What happened then was something I never would have expected. Chevron wheeled around, eyes flashing fire, and _hit_ Sevvie—_hard_. He punched him right in the mouth with an armored fist, and blood spurted from Sevvie's lip as he went careening into the Deltas. Boss sort of stepped sideways, feigning apathy and allowing Sevvie to tumble into Sev and Fixer and eventually to the ground. Besides, if he was thinking what I was thinking, then Sevvie deserved it. Larra turned, and as soon as she saw the blood dripping down Sevvie's chin and onto his armor, her jaw dropped.

"Damn, Chev," she muttered, "I didn't know you'd have it in you to actually _do_ that one day . . ."

Chevron just grinned at her as Sevvie staggered to his feet, cradling his mouth in the black palm of his gauntlet. Needless to say, _my_ jaw almost hit the ground as I stared at the scene. I certainly hadn't anticipated Chevron to wallop Sevvie in such a way! That in itself was a surprise since Chevron seemed to be the strong, silent type. But after a moment, my expression of shock melted into a smile of gratitude as I—rather willingly, I might add—slipped my hand back into Chevron's. He looked at me a moment, almost in surprise, but then one corner of his mouth quirked upward. I looked up into his eyes.

"Maybe we'll just have to begin again at square one," I murmured.

Gently, I squeezed his hand as I laced my fingers into his, and behind us, the Deltas were riding Sevvie with all sorts of sniggering comments. Scorch in particular was mercilessly taunting him on every subject he could possibly think of, but Sevvie just glowered at him before wiping his mouth off on his glove. I stifled a smirk at the look on Sevvie's face before noticing the grin that was on Chevron's. He looked almost mischievous; his eyes were glittering a bit, even.

"Well," he began slowly, dragging the word out into a drawl, "square one was me staring at you . . . and square two, going off someplace private to talk . . ."

"All right, cut the list, Chev," Larra sighed, interrupting him. Personally, I would've liked to know what square three was! Heh. "We've gotta get you off the Imp radar first."

"Oh," Chevron replied, seeming as if he'd forgotten. "Yeah."

Oh, that. Yep, I remembered that Fixer had mentioned we _still_ needed to find a slicer to take care of the little problem . . . But I was still mainly thinking of what square three could have possibly been . . . I chuckled softly to myself. Behind me, I heard Boss laugh faintly, too before murmuring something to Larra about the "good ol' days." But the feeling of cheerfulness didn't last long because Fixer then piped up about Larra's radar comment.

"I think the best place to find somebody who could deactivate that chip would probably be in a cantina, or—believe it or not—a back alley," he stated with a nod of assurance.

"Uh, Fixer, I doubt he'd like some dude from a back alley working on him," Scorch answered, warily eyeing the expression of sudden apprehension on Chevron's face.

"It's not surgery," Fixer replied, and I knew Chevron had relaxed because his grip on my hand loosened a bit. "It's a preliminary scan to locate the chip, then a secondary scan with a device that scrambles the transmitter."

"And it shuts it down permanently?" I asked. Fixer nodded a bit.

"Nine times out of ten."

Well, that was certainly reassuring. _Not!_ Behind me, I heard Sev mutter something like "Watch us be that other one time." Those were my sentiments exactly, and quite frankly, this didn't seem like it was going well. I was quite worried. From the gleam in Chevron's eyes I deduced that we had once meant a great deal to one another, and I wanted to get that back if it was in any way possible. I wondered if it would be since, after all, both Boss and Larra had told me that since I had dragged out the armor I was wearing since it _felt_ familiar, I was doing pretty well. (And no, they still didn't know that I'd gotten drunk . . . I doubted I'd ever tell them.)

"The margin of error's a very thin line," Sevvie assured us. "More often than not, the chip shuts down."

"What about the not?" Larra asked him, one eyebrow raised.

"Then the chip becomes a mini-explosive."

"Oh, so, the good side is the chip gets turned off," Chevron said, sarcasm literally dripping from his words, "and the bad, my arm gets blown off. _Great_ to know."

I didn't say anything, but I bit my lip and clutched his hand. I think that was an instinctual motion; I hadn't really thought about tightening my grip. I sighed before finally coming up with something to say.

"We'll just have to find somebody good enough to shut it down without causing injury," I shrugged. Frankly, that was the only option.

"But isn't there an alternative?" Boss asked concernedly. Fixer lifted one shoulder and let it droop in something of a half-shrug.

"Sure," he replied. "We could check him into a med center and let them operate to tug the thing out. Thing is . . . if it's too deep, he loses his arm then, too."

"Great," Boss sighed, sounding as sarcastic as Chevron had. "This process just keeps getting easier."

"Finding a guy who can turn it off would be easier and less painful," Sevvie said. Chevron looked at him and arched a brow.

"Less painful to get my arm blown off than to lose function?" he grumbled.

"Worst-case scenarios, _vod_," Sevvie assured him. I don't think he believed it.

"We don't have much of a choice," Larra said reluctantly. "Operating is tricky for more than one reason."

"One of which is the probable situation of checking into an Imperial med center," I mused, feeling again as if I was pulling everything I was saying out of thin air. "We'd get betrayed in a heartbeat."

"Y'know I was just about to say that?" Scorch said to me, and I honestly wanted to tell him I had known.

"So, what do you want to do?" Fixer asked, looking pointedly at Chevron. "Chev, it's your arm, your chip. Your choice."

"We find someone to shut the thing down," Chevron stated with a nod. "If my arm gets blown, it gets blown. Big whoop; I can always get a replacement."

I felt my heart skip a beat, and my eyes went wide. He was actually willing to risk _permanently_ losing his arm?! I only half-heard Sevvie and Larra begin a short discussion on pirating droid arms, and my throat went dry as my blood ran cold. As if it were a reflex action, I reached up and gripped Chevron's shoulder, gazing at him with eyes that I knew were fearful. He gave me a tiny half-smile that was barely visible in the darkness of the nighttime streets, but it didn't comfort me any. There _was_ that possibility that his arm would be blown to pieces and we'd have to get it replaced with something made of metal and wire instead of flesh and bone. Nevertheless, I turned around, stomped my foot, and glared at Sevvie and Larra.

"I don't know _why_ you're discussing getting a prosthesis," I chided, garnering several surprised expressions from my tone of voice. "He's _NOT_ going to lose his arm."

I solemnly nodded once, glaring at them with pure stubbornness. He wasn't about to lose a limb if I had anything to say about it! Fixer came up alongside me and clapped me on the shoulder. When I turned, I could tell that he was grinning.

"All right, there's one with optimism," he said. "Now let's just find us a tech to take care of this little problem!"

So we went back through the city, scanning cantinas and darkened back alleys for any sign of someone who might be a tech wizard with the equipment to do what we needed. I don't know how long we wandered around, but it was long enough that even my firm, supportive boots weren't enough to keep my feel from growing sore; that tells me it must've been several unproductive hours. We were about to go back to our hotel for the night and resume the search in the morning when, as we past what must've been the umpteenth alleyway, Chevron's sharp vision caught sight of a faint light that could only come from a computer. Fixer rubbed his hands together, uttered a gleeful exclamation, and started off toward the light. Slowly, we all followed after him, and I was tightly gripping Chevron's hand much like a frightened child. After a while, we came to the very end of the alley, and there he was: a techno-looking guy with a bunch of electronic gizmos. Hello, first good break we've had in ages!


	16. The Tech

**Chapter Fifteen – The Tech**

Let me just say this: as soon as I saw the computer wizard, I wanted to turn right around and leave the alley. He looked literally schizophrenic; I wondered if he hadn't been kicked out of the local loony bin. But there he was, leaning over a gizmo that looked like a larger-than-usual datapad and typing madly at it, his face washed in the blue glow of the screen. The entire alley seemed to be glowing with the blue light, and as we drew nearer, Scorch leaned over to Fixer, eyebrows furrowed.

"Y'sure this is the guy?" he asked. "He looks . . . _nuts_!"

He certainly did. He looked as if he had misplaced his straightjacket. They call that _insane_. They make medicine for it, believe it or not! Check with your handy-dandy, friendly, local pharmaceutical companies, folks; it's true! Beside Scorch, Sevvie shrugged a bit.

"That's normal," he said simply. My eyebrow went skyward.

"Coming from _you_," Larra scoffed. "Whenever _he_ had his hands on a computer, his eyes were so wide you'd think they fall out."

She looked at Sevvie and shook her head, but he just beamed. Fixer chuckled, seeming as if being in close quarters with fellow computer maniacs was the best thing in the universe. Yeah, being good with computers is one thing; being stark raving _bonkers_ is another! I just shook my head and sighed during all this as Fixer ambled up to Schizo-Boy. He cleared his throat, and the tech (or I hoped he was, at least) glanced up only a moment to see all eight of us before resuming his harried typing. I stole a quick peek over his shoulder and saw that he was typing up a terrifyingly complex code of some sort; just looking at it made my eyes burn. After a moment, the tech looked up again.

"Listen," he grumbled, "if you ain't got better reason than talkin' tech with me, then move it, will ya? You're makin' me skittish."

"It _is_ tech, pal," Fixer replied, crossing his arms. "Otherwise we wouldn't have come down here when we saw the light off your 'pad."

"Makes sense, I guess," the tech nodded. "Now what'd you . . . wait, let me guess."

He glanced down at his 'pad before turning it around for all of us to see. The screen was flickering madly, and huge static streams buzzed across it, obscuring the code he was working on. He glared a bit angrily at us for a minute, pointing emphatically to the awful static that crackled on his 'pad's screen.

"Yeah, diagnosis is easy this time," he muttered. "Somebody's got a whacked-out transmitter on 'em. Quit screwin' with my techno gear, will ya?!"

At that, he picked up his 'pad and clutched it protectively and tightly, an even angrier scowl twisting his face. Chevron stepped forward, eyes narrowed and hands on his hips. He shot an irritated glare at the tech before speaking.

"Look, punk, I can't help it," he said. "It got slotted into me Force knows when."

"Look, he's wired into Imp tracking systems," Sevvie added, coming to his aid. "We need it off."

"Preferably soon," Larra nodded, crossing her arms and looking steadily at the tech.

Well, that did it. The tech rubbed his hands together as a somewhat rabid look crossed his face. I didn't know about the others, but I wanted to jab some sedatives into that guy _immediately_. I watched him closely as he set his 'pad down and leaned back, crossing his arms. He studied Chevron a moment before a smirk crept onto his face.

"Ooh, niiiiiice," he said, half to himself, "an Imperial tracker . . . Those are _fun_ to shut down because it's got an extra ounce of jeopardy to it. Make one wrong move and . . . BA-BOOM!"

He cackled darkly, and I jumped in fright, thrusting my hand into Chevron's before glaring _hard_ at Schizo-Boy. No way was he going to be casual about this and perhaps cost Chevron his arm!

"You deactivate that chip without blowing his arm off or I _will_ slit your throat," I informed him in a low tone.

No sooner had I said that than I almost instinctively flicked my wrist. I almost yelped with surprise when the hilt of a knife tumbled into my grip, but I kept myself calm as I held it out for the tech to see. The light of his 'pad glinted off the knife's silver blade, and he jumped with fright. Point made.

"Uh, sure," he said, looking at me warily. "Yeah, just . . . Okay, Chip Man, just . . . set yourself down righ'chere . . ."

He jabbed a thumb at a nearby crate upon which Chevron promptly took a seat. Larra crossed to his side, standing protectively at her shoulder. She shot a malicious glare at the tech as her hands fiddled with her armor a moment.

"If his arm goes," she said slowly, "not only will she silt your throat, but I'll do a few other _very_ nasty things."

I glanced at her and suddenly saw that there were the silvery hilts of two lightsabers in her hands. I almost asked where they'd come from, but I kept my mouth shut; I'd ask about it the next time we did a mind raid on me. I noticed that the tech jumped again (skittish fella, isn't he?), and he scurried around his humble abode (ha!) for a few moments. He finally brought a pair of scanners and a knotted mess of cables back to where Chevron was waiting like a saint—a very nervous saint who was fidgeting his knee, that is. I stood by, quietly watching, my knife still in my hand and within full view of the tech. Oh, he saw it, all right; I knew he did because his eyes widened every time they caught a glimpse of the blade.

"This had better work," I told him warningly.

"Aw, it will," he replied, hooking the first scanner to his 'pad with some of the tangled cables. "What, don't you trust lil' ol' me?"

"No."

"'At's what I thought. Now . . ." Having plugged the scanner into his 'pad, he flipped it on before running it across Chevron's right forearm. After a moment, a grainy, black-and-white image that looked startlingly like an x-ray appeared on the 'pad's screen, and the tech nodded. "Interesting place to put it. So deep in the muscle that your body's forced to get used to it. Also deadly if you go after it with a scalpel. Y'see, this is a version that'll combust when it hits outside air . . . like in an OR."

I felt Chevron take a shaky breath, and I gripped his shoulder. That had been the very thing we'd suggested as an alternative to this. He glanced back at me a moment, and I could've sworn that his eyes said, "I'm so glad you're there."

"So if we'd checked him into a medlab and he'd gone under the knife," Boss said with furrowed brows and crossed arms, "that thing would've exploded as soon as it was exposed?"

"Yep, yep," the tech replied. "Pretty fancy, ain't it?"

He gave a maniacal chuckle that only reinforced my belief that he was insane. Chevron shuddered a bit before shooting the tech a harried, angry glance.

"Now that we know it certainly was wired to go boom, mind turning the thing off?!" he exclaimed.

"Aw, keep your shirt on, Chip Man," the tech chided. "Gimme a minute."

He turned away muttering inaudibly about the lack of patience in people these days, and I could've killed him for that statement. He flipped off the first scanner and unplugged it before dragging a long cable out of the tangled web of other cables and attaching it to the second scanner. Then he plugged the scanner into his 'pad, using the 'pad as a power source.

"All righty, folks," he said. "Here we go! Might want to stand back . . . We have five seconds to know if that thing'll shut down or explode."

"Why five seconds?" Sev asked.

_Because he's an absolutely lunatic fan of drama and over-exaggeration?_ I thought with a roll of my eyes.

"That's how long it takes for the scanner to prep!" the tech replied, looking incredulous. Sev shrugged, but Scorch's eyes went wide.

"You mean the actual shutdown is instantaneous?!" he gasped. Fixer sighed.

"_I_ could've told you that . . ."

I shot a nervous glance at Chevron, who was sitting there like a champ. He took a breath and then sighed quickly through his nose. He gave the tech a brief nod, straightening his shoulders. I noticed that Larra's grip tightened on her 'sabers and that Sevvie edged closer to his brother. The tech snickered darkly as he flipped the scanner on, inching it toward Chevron's arm. Chevron almost, _almost_ flinched with fright, but because he was a soldier, he didn't. The tech grinned broadly and began counting down.

"And five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . _one!_"

He swept the scanner across Chevron's tense arm, and we all dared not breathe. Then, just like that, there was a low hum from the scanner followed closely by a beep, and the tech's 'pad's screen quit breaking apart. Its picture returned to normal to reveal his in-progress code. He chuckled with satisfaction.

"Piece of cake!" he cackled.

I exhaled heavily and sheathed my knife by shoving it back up into my gauntlet, and under my hand, I felt Chevron almost keel over with relief. Somehow, though, he kept himself steady as, beside me, Larra sighed happily as she clipped her twin lightsabers (_Note to self: Ask her about those ASAP!_) onto her belt. Sevvie scurried up to Chevron and looked him over.

"Feel any different?" he asked quickly.

"Not that I can tell," Chevron replied. Sevvie nodded.

"Then it's a good thing that your arm's not gonna blow off."

Nearby, Fixer grinned, walked to the tech's side, and clapped him across the shoulder.

"Thanks, pal," he said. The tech looked incredulous.

"What, you think I did this out of the goodness of my heart?" the tech said before shaking his head and sticking his hand out. "Naw . . . there's the matter of finances."

I straightened, and my knife _almost_ tumbled out into my hand again. Was this guy some sort of con who'd do whatever people wanted, technology-wise, only to clean them out of every credit they had and claim it was his "payment"? I glared at him, and he took only a momentary wary glance at me before turning back to Fixer.

"What's your price?" Fixer asked him. The tech shrugged a bit.

"Eh, a couple hundred," he said. "Just enough to keep the 'pad upgraded and running."

Sighing a bit, Boss came up alongside the tech and Fixer and dug two hundred credits from a pouch on his belt which looked to me to be the community money bag. He pressed them into the tech's outstretched hand, and he had no sooner done that than the tech closed his fist around the money and snickered gleefully.

"Thanks for your business, folks!" he said, waving a bit. "Haven't had that much fun in years!"

_Fun, indeed,_ I thought dourly. _We'll see how much fun you have next time you drive us nuts with suspense._

I glared once more at the tech, but he just ignored me that time as he turned merrily back to his 'pad, typing madly at his in-progress code. I reached over and grabbed Chevron's hand as he rose to his feet, and he looked at me curiously a moment. I just smiled faintly and mouthed the words "Glad that worked out okay." He nodded in whole-hearted agreement and sighed heavily as Scorch piped up nearby.

"Uh, can we get out of here now?" he asked before dropping his voice to a near- whisper and pointing over at the tech. "That guy is creeping me out!"

"Right," Chevron replied, taking a glance at our clasped hands. That seemed to be happening a lot . . . Hm. "Let's get going."

We started back down the alleyway, but Sevvie put up a bit of a protest, motioning back to the tech and sort of whimpering. It seemed as if he wanted to stick around and socialize with Schizo-Boy; apparently, you just can't break techno whizzes of their lust to know all the latest tricks with all the latest gear.

"But this kid—" he began; Larra silenced him quickly with a simple "look."

"If you don't start moving, Sevvie," she warned, "you'll meet _my_ technology."

At this, she patted her twin lightsabers, and Sevvie took one glance at them before repenting and shuffling off. As we all walked out of the alley and back through the city, Chevron gave me a smile and patted my right forearm on the place where the knife had come from.

"Your recall your knife trick, eh?" he asked me, eyes glittering a bit.

I stared down at my arm and flexed my wrist, hearing and feeling the blade scrape against the inside of its concealed sheath. My third two-second flash popped up; this time, it was me (or somebody who looked startlingly like me) and an older man who was teaching me to throw a knife. Huh. Well, that was interesting. I didn't really know how to answer Chevron's question, so I just shrugged and nodded a bit.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said, then followed that up with a statement so unusual that I had to have snatched it out of thin air. "I suppose it was one of those things that was so deeply . . . ingrained that I couldn't ever forget it. But I wonder why this wasn't taken from me in _Lusankya_? That's another reason why I wonder if we weren't allowed to escape."

Suddenly, I had the strangest feeling that I carried more than one knife on my person, and at the end of the alleyway, I crouched down and began searching all over for them. Everyone gathered around me, and my brows furrowed as I kept looking.

"And if I remember one knife," I said slowly, patting myself down, "then I should remember the . . . others . . ."

As if I was back to normal (hah! Normalcy was far from my sight!), my hand flew automatically to my left hip, but all I found as an empty leather sheath. Something in the back of my mind informed me that that knife was the one that had been taken from me on _Lusankya_. I hadn't meant to, but I actually felt a slight pain of grief before bending down and tugging a long knife from my left boot. I smiled to myself and happily allowed the word "_Kandosii_" to tumble out of my mouth. Chevron beamed at me as I turned and looked at everyone, feeling a bit more hopeful than . . . well, than usual.

"Definitely," he enthused, helping me to my feet before glancing around at the darkened streets of Ord Mantell. "So, what're we going to do now?"

"No clue," Larra replied, and then she lifted her index finger as if an idea had suddenly popped into her mind. "Y'know, we oughtta let Rogue pick; we've gotta work at getting her memory back."

For the first time in days, that idea actually sounded good to me. Oddly, I wasn't afraid of the awful headaches that I knew would come. But I didn't want to appear _too_ excited, so I just shrugged as I returned my second knife to my boot, making sure to actually get it in the sheath and not my ankle. (For those of you who don't keep knives in your boots, you cannot possibly know that this is actually a genuine concern for those of us who _do_. One wrong move, and it's time for a hypodermic full of bacta right in the ankle! Ouch.) After I had put everything back in place, I looked around at the others and lifted one shoulder before allowing it to drop limply into a normal position.

"I don't know," I said slowly. "It just feels like I need to sit down and think for a while. I mean, after seeing that guy in the blue tunic, I—" I broke off abruptly as that image from several days earlier came back, but much clearer this time. My eyebrows shot upward. "Wait a minute! I think his face is coming back!"

"Quick, concentrate on it!" Scorch urged.

So I did. I was so excited that I would soon know the identity of that mystery man; it had gnawed at me ever since before we met Schizo-Boy and Boss had mentioned that I didn't remember my father. Was this guy with the blurry face my father, after all? That made it more exciting than if he'd just been some random guy from some random event in my life. My heart pounding, I furrowed my brows and concentrated inward, willing the image to focus. It was almost there, almost crystal-clear . . . but then I lurched forward as my head began to swirl violently. I felt as if it was going to explode, and even forcing my eyes open to look at the worried expressions on my companions' faces was excruciating. I couldn't do anything other than realize absently that this was a headache far worse than any of the others as I staggered backwards. My back slammed into a wall, sending jarring shockwaves through my spine and up into my brain. It felt as if someone was stabbing shards of jagged rock into my skull, and I pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead as I slid down the wall into a crumpled heap on the ground. Almost immediately, I felt arms surrounding me, holding me close. The next moment, I realized hazily that my face was buried into a familiar chestplate.

"Oh, ow, ow, _ow_ . . ." I moaned into Chevron's shoulder, my voice muffled by his comforting embrace. "Headache . . . bad one . . . worse than ever . . . like a stick of dynamite . . ."

I squeezed my eyes shut against the blinding pain as I buried my head in his arms. He gently stroked my hair as it slowly grew damp from the sweat that was rolling down my face and the back of my neck. At that moment, every horrible feeling of deepest, darkest depression came flooding back. I wanted to either sob with anguish or allow the headache (which felt more like an earthquake) to kill me and just end it all permanently. I would've shoved myself out of Chevron's arms and back into my dark little hole of misery, but my head hurt so badly that I didn't even want to move.

"_Udesii_," I heard Chevron say, but his voice sounded distant. "You know what we keep telling you: don't strain too many neurons trying. It might just come back."

"I'm not even trying," I moaned, "but it still hurts . . . Like my head's just gonna explode any minute . . ."

Strangely enough, the moment those words came out of me, the pain vanished, and I was left lying there as a sweaty, panting, armored heap. I was breathing so hard that I was beginning to wheeze. After a moment, I inhaled sharply through clenched teeth and blinked my eyes open to find everyone gathered around me with worriedly furrowed brows. I squinted at them a moment as an overwhelming desire to scream _"Leave me alone!"_ bubbled up inside me. I bit my lip to keep from allowing that to tumble out as an incoherent shriek.

"Okay . . ." I whispered, trying to get used to the idea of being pain-free—for the moment, at least. "Okay, it's . . . gone. That is something I don't want to have again . . ."

That was a severe understatement. I'd had a dozen or so much milder attacks like that, but this was the worst yet, hands down. Chevron gave me a sympathetic look, and Larra came to my side and grabbed a gentle hold of my arm.

"Easy," she said, her voice a bit soothing. "Let's get back to the hotel room and get you some rest, a' right?"

I nodded a bit hesitantly, trying to keep all the dark, miserable emotions pinned down and hidden. I was shaky as I pushed myself up and Larra and Chevron helped me to my feet. I nodded rapidly for a couple seconds, blinking.

"I'm a' right," I told them. "I can stand."

They didn't look as if they believed me, so I pulled myself free of their grasps and planted my feet firmly on the ground, exhaling heavily. I felt myself totter a bit, but I just forced myself to remain steady. I rolled my shoulders back, squaring them, and suddenly, there was a little voice in the back of my mind: _"A drink will make the pain go away."_ Hmm. Well, I hadn't thought about it . . . but suddenly, the idea was too tempting to ignore. I just needed to get away for a bit, go far away . . . I didn't like the idea of a second hangover, but I needed something to dull the pain for a while. Once again, I stubbornly refused to turn to those around me for help, making a proud fool out of myself. (And just so you know, alcohol doesn't solve problems. It only worsens them. I know this now.) I looked around at the others, who all wore strange expressions of what seemed like concern mixed with confusion, and I took a breath.

"No . . . not to the room," I said firmly. "I'm going for a drink."

Without waiting for a response from them, I turned on heel and strode down the street toward the first cantina I saw. I could feel their worried gazes glued to me, but I ignored it. It was if I somehow knew that they were thinking I wasn't the Rogue they remembered. Well, that's tough. I was the Rogue _I_ remembered, and if no one could bring my memories back, then I would just adopt a new identity and make new memories. I'd go out into the galaxy, get a job, and make a new life for myself. At that moment, I didn't care that I would be abandoning those who said they knew me best. Right then, I just needed to get away, just make the stabbing pain in my heart go away. As I neared the cantina, tears blurred my eyes, and I broke into a run.

* * *

They just watched her go. The Deltas exchanged a few odd glances, wondering what had just happened, wondering where the Rogue they knew had gone. This was not the young woman they'd all been friends with; it frightened them all to think that that Rogue could be gone forever. Chevron sighed heavily with internal anguish as his shoulders slumped forward; he didn't want to lose the woman who meant so much to him. It would be like a second death. Quietly, Sevvie laid a hand on his brother's arm as the others sighed. Sev blinked a moment before shaking his head with a bit of shock. 

"Okay," he said, "things just keep gettin' weirder and weirder."

"I get the feeling they gave her a higher concentration of chems than they did the rest of us," he said softly, sympathetic eyes locked on the ground.

"Higher . . ." Larra hissed in a surprised breath. "Force, I don't what to think what'd happen if any of us got that much."

Chevron looked over at her, eyes wide and full of pain. His brows furrowed, and he chewed at his bottom lip for a moment before looking back in the direction Rogue had gone. There stood the cantina, looming like a great abyss to swallow whole the woman he loved more than anything in the galaxy.

"But . . . we _can't_ lose Rogue," he whispered mournfully. "She . . ."

Larra reached over, watching him with knowing eyes, and gently squeezed his shoulder. She sighed and nodded.

"We know, Chev," she said gently. "We know."

She gave his shoulder another gentle squeeze before starting off toward the cantina. The Delta boys wordlessly patted Chevron's back as they followed Larra, and eventually, he brought himself to following as well if only to try to save his _cyar'ika_.


	17. Things Get Worse

**Chapter Sixteen – Things Get Worse—Yay**

You know, in holovids, you always see the poor drunk drowning his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey. He always looks so pathetic, and the bartender always casts sympathetic glances at him as the fellow stands there, downing one shot glass at a time.

Well, let me tell you, it's exactly like that. I was leaning against the bar with a half-empty shot glass of Corellian whiskey in my hand, just sort of looking at it. That whiskey was better than the stuff I'd found in the ship's cockpit; even though whiskey is supposed to be sort of aged, I figured that stuff was _way_ too aged—get my drift? Anyway, I was on my second, maybe third glass, and the bartender simply would not stop looking in my direction. He looked at me with eyes full of pity, but I just ignored him. He'd tried to make small talk when I'd first walked in, and that slowed the arrival of my first drink. Well, it came faster when I laid my knife out on the counter. And you know what? Mr. Bartender quit trying to talk to me, which was just peachy-keen as far as I was concerned.

I had just poured myself another drink and was taking my first swig from it when, from the corner of my eye, I saw Larra and the gang walk in. Chevron's eyes were glued to me, but Larra pulled him away to a corner table. I just ignored them all, looking the other way and pretending to study the painting above the bar. Of course, I couldn't ignore Boss as he sidled up beside me at the bar. I tried to; I took several slow sips from my glass in an attempt to show boredom and disinterest, but he just hung around. Finally, I could ignore him no longer, and I turned to see him watching me carefully.

"Come to get me, huh?" I asked, trying to put as many barbs in my voice as I possibly could. "Gonna drag me back to the room and force me to 'rest,' right?"

He cringed at that, looking pained at my tone, and I mentally congratulated myself for the first stab of—hopefully—many.

"Nah, just came to check up on you," he said gently.

"Oh, that's nice," I retorted, sarcasm dripping from my voice.

"_Udesii_, Rogue," he said, slightly lifting a hand. "Just thought you might—"

"Need a pal? Well, that's lovely." My shoulders slumped as I took another sip from my glass. "Y'know what? I do. You don't mind playing confidante for me, do you?"

"Why not?" he answered. "I've played that part for the rest of my family."

I shot him a bit of an odd glance. He considered me part of his family. My inner cynic wanted to snap at him with "I'm not your family" or something equally malicious, but I thought better of it. I needed someone to talk to right then, and he was there . . .

"Okay, uh, great," I said before sighing. "Well . . . I don't know where to begin . . . except I'm feeling . . . well . . ."

"Hopeless?" he offered.

"Exactly. Like I'll _never_ remember who I am, where I came from, the things I've done in my life . . ."

"You've only been trying for a few days," he reminded me. I rolled my eyes.

"But after that mental meltdown out there, I'm really beginning to doubt! That one was so much worse than all the others . . . I don't think I'll ever remember." I turned away and sighed, cradling my glass in my hand and watching the pale brown liquid swirl around in the bottom of it. After a moment, I glanced over my shoulder at Boss. "You wouldn't happen to know how I feel, would you?"

He slid up behind me and placed a kind hand on my shoulder.

"Oh, wouldn't I? Listen, when we all went through that hell, I got the worst of it. It took me longer to remember than any of the others. All I knew to respond to was my _name_. Yeah, there's definitely a feeling of hopelessness in there, I know. It's a depression of sorts . . ."

He trailed off, but I nodded and finished.

". . . like there's this deep hole you can't get out of."

Boss nodded as I turned around, summoned the bartender, and ordered another drink. I was about to take a swig from it when Boss suddenly snatched it from my hand, splattering the whiskey all over the bar. I glared accusingly at him, but he just handed it back to the rather confused bartender.

"No, you don't," he told me, following up that goody-two-shoes act of swiping my liquor by paying my tab.

"Why not?!" I barked. "It's my stomach! I'll burn a hole in it if I so please!"

"Not while I'm standing here," he said firmly. "You will _not_ get yourself drunk just because you're having a harder time than the rest of us with recovering."

"Watch me!" I shrieked, grabbing a fresh bottle and storming off to a table in a dark corner.

What surprised me was the anger that was just boiling inside me. It felt so . . . _unfamiliar_ to be that enraged. It felt like that wasn't who I was, like to be that angry was completely out of my character. I just took a long drink from my new bottle before my head went into my hands and I let out a deep exhale of misery. I think that, perhaps way deep down, I wanted Boss or someone to come after me and knock some sense into me, but then again, maybe I didn't. Maybe I only wanted to be left alone so I could go crawl under a rock and die. I don't know how long I sat there like the miserable wreck that I was, but I know that soon I heard a familiar voice.

"You know that stuff's going to whack you out about as much as it would any drunkard."

I looked up, whiskey bottle still in my hand, and saw Chevron standing there. I think the part of me that _was_ the "me" everyone knew had enough of a hold on me to make me want to leap up, throw myself into his arms, and beg forgiveness while babbling out a plea for help. Instead, my anger, fear, and pain got the better of me, and I glared at him.

"I don't particularly give a damn right now," I hissed. "If I'm never gonna remember who I am, might as well make new friends, eh?" I chuckled darkly, waving the bottle at him and watching his eyes grow wide. "Guess I couldn't convince you to become my drinking buddy, huh?"

His brows furrowed as if in fear, and I felt a tiny pang of remorse. He sank into the chair across the table from me and reached across for my hands, but I kept them safely out of range. For some reason, it didn't matter to me that I was driving daggers into his heart; I suppose I was just in so much pain that I wanted everyone to know exactly how and what I felt.

"Rogue, what the _fierfek_ are you going on about?!" he exclaimed. "You _WILL_ remember! And you're not going to drink any more of this; don't want you to kill off whatever brain cells you _do_ still have."

At that, he reached over and grabbed the bottle from my hand, shaking his head at me as if chiding me for my childish behavior. My eyes widened as anger heated my face, and I reached across, grabbing at the bottle.

"You give that back!" I snapped. "It's all I have, okay?! And why? Because I can't remember one _shabla_ thing about my _shabla_ life, all right?! And I _KNOW_ I won't remember; Isard finally did one that worked. She finally wiped a memory without it coming back. Yep, I'm the lab rat. Me, an _experiment_. Look at you. _You_ were able to hold on, to remember! Me, I tried. Dammit, I _TRIED_! I held on to whatever I could, but it slipped out of my hands . . . about . . . like . . . this."

To prove my point, I finally seized the whiskey bottle from his hand, held it out over the floor, and simply let it tumble from my grip. I watched as it shattered on the floor, spilling whiskey all over the place, and that one little action seemed to completely paraphrase my entire struggle. Chevron grabbed my hands and squeezed them—_hard_.

"Look, Rogue," he said sternly, refusing to release my hands even when I struggled against his firm grasp. "Yes, you've had your entire memory erased. Didn't you at least _LISTEN_ to Ace?! Or ask Lar about it?! _They know!_ They have the experience! Just don't do this to yourself! I can't stand it! I've had my heart split in two once, literally. It's not something I want to happen metaphorically, either!"

He jabbed a thumb at his chestplate where there was a perfectly round, charred hole right over where his heart would be. My eyes widened as I saw it, for something flashed in the back of my mind that involved that hole. But before I could look _too_ surprised, I steeled my face, locked my jaw, and pushed myself up from the table. Already I was beginning to feel like I was staggering a bit.

"I can't do this," I told him, my voice breaking. "I can't keep not knowing who I am!"

Biting my lip against the tears that threatened to overflow at any moment, I turned and raced from the cantina and out onto the streets. I wasn't heading for the hotel; instead, I ran for the docking bay in which I knew we'd left the freighter. I was going there to rack my brain until either a memory came out or I died. Either way, it didn't really matter anymore, so I just ran.

When I reached the ship, I stumbled up the loading ramp, barely able to see where I was going from a combination of the whiskey and the tears that were blurring my vision. I hurled myself into the cargo hold, sealing the door behind me as I crumpled into a hysterically sobbing heap.

* * *

Chevron was right behind Rogue from the moment she'd darted from the cantina. Afraid of what she could do to herself, he chased her all the way back to the little freighter. The ship seemed to bestow a sympathetic look upon him as he dashed up the lowered boarding ramp and skidded to a halt inside the main hold, frantically glancing this way and that. His keen soldiers' ears were searching for any sound that would betray Rogue's hiding place to him. After a moment, the sounds of muffled, anguished sobbing reached him, and he dashed to the cargo hold door. He ground to a halt before it, sinking to his knees and pressing his palms to the cold durasteel.

"Rogue . . . Rogue, please, just come out," he begged. "I can tell you anything you want to know! Just don't do this . . . don't cut yourself off, _please_. Let me help."

* * *

"No!" I cried, my voice weak and trembling from all my crying. Now I was more afraid than anything. "I can't do this . . . I can't live like this . . . It _hurts_ . . ."

Then I did the unimaginable. I pulled my knees into my chest, pressed the heels of my hands against my forehead, and began to think harder than I ever had. If there were a way to demonstrate what I was doing to my mind, it would be in the form of a maddened dog ripping a newspaper to absolute shreds. My heart was pounding, echoing in my ears, as I gritted my teeth and started forcing things out. Tiny fragments, barely coherent, were there in the farthest depths, but I struggled to get them out in the open. The pain was back and in full force, but I didn't care. I ignored my body's pleas for mercy, for rest. I just wanted my memories back, and I was at a point where I didn't care what it took to get them. Pain didn't matter anymore; I was ignoring every burst of it. I knew what was coming was a headache far worse than the one I'd had only a few minutes earlier, but even that didn't deter me. Squeezing my eyes shut, I kept dragging out whatever bits of memories I could find in spite of the horrendous pain and the flashes of bright, colored light.

"I'm . . . gonna . . . remember . . . _something_ . . ." I gasped out. "Anything . . ."

* * *

"Rogue, _NO_!" Chevron shrieked. Rogue's words struck a jolt fear into his heart where previously there had been only a twinge. "If you force it . . . _Haar'chak!_"

He lunged almost rabidly at the cargo hold door, driving his shoulder into the metal until the flesh was very badly bruised and excruciatingly sore. But he had to get into that hold and stop her before it was too late. His pulse reverberated in the bones of his skull as he kept flying at the door in a mad fury, ignoring the stabbing pain in his shoulders.

* * *

"No, I _will_!" I screamed at him, the loud pounding of him against the door making my head throb worse than it already was. "I've got bits . . . pieces . . ."

It was all I could do to keep at it. The pain was so bad that I thought my skull would explode and my brains would go splattering all across the walls. I don't know why, but for some reason, "going splat" would've been quite the welcome respite. For a split-second, I wanted to stop, to quit this madness. I didn't _really_ want to die, but . . . but I was too far into this to stop now. I kept digging in the farthest corners of my mind, trying to dredge up any little thing I could. The pain was literally blinding; I could barely see anymore. It was just dimness and loud sound . . . It was stabbing bursts of agony that scrambled all coherent thought and almost literally earsplitting sounds of Chevron screaming at me to stop before I hurt something and his armor slamming against the metal door . . . I tried to look up, to see the door, but it wasn't there. I knew I'd hurt something when I realized I could no longer see. I tried to scream for help but found I had no voice. Fear welled up inside me until I could hardly breathe. It felt as if I was choking, and all I could do was curl up in a ball of misery and darkness as I clamped my hands over my ears to try to dull the deafening noise echoing in my head. And the pain was worse than it had ever been before . . . It felt as if someone was setting off thousands of demolition charges all at once inside my poor brain. I knew I'd brought all this on myself, but now it was too late to stop it. I couldn't see, I could barely think straight, and I was tumbling headlong into unconsciousness, and, Force, I wanted it to come. But Chevron was still slamming himself into the door, and I felt a pang of regret . . . I was hurting him as much as I was hurting myself; that fact finally registered. I opened my eyes to complete darkness, but I knew where the door was because of the sound. More than anything, I wanted him to burst through that door, come to me, and help me. I whispered "I'm sorry" to the door and ultimately him outside before I resigned myself to suffering under the intense pain that would not subside and to accustoming myself to blindness.

* * *

"NO, ROGUE!" Chevron screamed, pounding at the door with fist and shoulder until every inch of his body throbbed and his eyes were blurred with tears. "YOU'LL HURT YOURSELF! I DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOU LIKE YOU LOST ME!"

He hurled himself at the door until it occurred to him that the Delta boys had some spare shoulder guards hanging around the ship. As fast as he could, he darted away and retrieved one of Boss's, and as he returned to the cargo hold door, he strapped it over his own guard before slamming, full-speed, into the door again. He _had_ to break through if it was the last thing he ever could do. This time, his shoulder drove right through one of the hatch's hinges, breaking it. He kept bashing it at that spot, slowly making a hole large enough to squeeze through. His thoughts were consumed only by getting inside and saving Rogue before it was too late to do anything except find a spare plot in a cemetery.

* * *

I heard the door break. I was only half-conscious at the time and I still couldn't see; I was slowly convincing myself that I'd done permanent damage to the part of my brain that controlled my sight. I blinked up in the direction of the door, and I knew that if I could see, my vision would be crossing and doubling anyway. The pain hadn't gotten any better; I was certain I was going to die. My head was pounding and spinning, and I curled up into a tiny ball, pressing my palms tightly against my forehead.

"N—not this time . . ." I whispered to no one but myself. "No . . . This time I'm outta here."

I suddenly felt hands on me; Chevron was there. But he'd come too late, I just knew it. I reached up to touch a face I couldn't see and felt the faint scratchiness that told me he hadn't shaved in a couple days. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but my head didn't let me. It told me I'd been a naughty girl by punishing me with one horrific burst of pain, and I gave a faint cry as I went limp and completely motionless. The words "I'm sorry" had been on the tip of my tongue; I only got "I'm" and the first syllable of "sorry" out before the total blackness came and swallowed me.


	18. The Waiting Game

**Chapter Seventeen – The Waiting Game**

Chevron couldn't help himself as fear entangled its steel fingers around his chest, squeezing until it felt he would burst. He grabbed Rogue's limp shoulders and shook them in fright, his dark eyes wide. This wasn't fair; he couldn't lose her. Now, more than ever, she meant so much to him . . . _It just wasn't fair!_ A thousand thoughts ran through his mind: "Why did Isard have to take her from me?"; "Why can't we get a good break for once?"; "Will she ever come back?" Needless to say, he was absolutely terrified. A strangled cry rose in his throat as he continued to shake Rogue's shoulders yet receive no response. Tears welled in his eyes as he grabbed her and held her tightly, pressing her head to his chest and burying his face in her soft yet tousled, almost matted, brown hair. Again, she made no response; she was totally limp in his arms, in his terrified grasp.

"No, please, Rogue," he whispered. "Please, don't do this to me . . . Wake up, _please_!"

Though he had been trying to hold them back, the tears came and flooded down his face, splattering against Rogue's black and silver armor that he knew so well. He held her tighter than he ever had before, weeping silently. His heart felt as though it was shattering; it was like so many years before on Geonosis, but this was twenty—no, a hundred—a _thousand_!—times worse. _If only_ she'd listened . . . _If only_ she'd given him a chance to help her! He knew he could have if she'd only given him the opportunity. Misery welled up in him as he cradled her close, looking down in anguish at her closed eyes and pale face. Her lips were exceptionally dark against the whiteness of her skin, and he longed to kiss them only once just to remind her that he still cared, that he still loved her even after everything. But all he could think of at that moment was how much it ached to be on that side of the torment, to hold the one he loved and wonder if life would ever regain a sense of normalcy for them. He gently kissed her, mentally begging her to wake up and be all right, before he pressed his forehead to hers and squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. Tears stung the backs of his eyelids before they seeped through his lashes, and he heaved a shuddering sigh.

At that moment, there were hurried footsteps on the metal floor panels outside the cargo hold, but he didn't look up. The footsteps came to a halt not too far from where he was, and the next things he heard were a sharp inhale and then an accented voice: Boss.

"Oh, no . . ." Chevron knew he'd just seen Rogue, and his heart ached worse.

"What?" That was Scorch. He had a voice more unique in tone than any of the others'. "She's not . . ." He didn't say it; probably couldn't bring himself to, Chevron mused. "Is she?"

Chevron sensed the anxiety in the air; it was so thick that it could have been cut with one of Larra's lightsabers. Speaking of Larra, that was who came to his side and knelt down on the floor beside him. She gripped his shoulder, looking first at Rogue and then at him. Her face went white as her eyebrows shot skyward.

"Chev . . ." she whispered. "Chev, she's not . . ."

"I don't know," Chevron replied, his voice trembling and his gaze never leaving Rogue's face. "She was trying to force herself to remember . . ."

"_Haar'chak_," Larra muttered before reaching over and gently shaking Rogue's shoulder. "Rogue? Rogue, c'mon, _vod'ika_ . . ."

Boss quietly crept into the cargo hold and crouched down beside Chevron, reaching out and pressing his index and middle fingers against the side of Rogue's neck. He exhaled faintly through his nose, feeling for a pulse in the young Fett. After a moment, he sat back on his heels and looked up at Chevron and Larra. Chevron seemed as if he was simply waiting for Boss to deliver the final crushing blow of unbearably awful news.

"She still has a pulse," he said, and Chevron visibly relaxed. It was as if, despite the fact that he was holding her very closely, he hadn't noticed a pulse. Perhaps fear had so thoroughly deadened him to all else apart from somehow convincing Rogue to wake up. Boss sighed a bit before continuing. "It's barely there, though. We've got to get her someplace to rest, someplace to recover."

"Whatever possessed her to try to force herself?!" Sev asked, sounding incredulous.

Boss turned and looked at him, his complete, unbiased understanding of what Rogue was going through showing clearly in the depths of his dark eyes. He shook his head a bit as if chastising Sev for using that tone of voice. It seemed that he wished Sev would show a little compassion; after all, _he_ had been through a nightmarish experience quite similar to this but far different in terms of extremeness.

"Don't you think you would, too, if you couldn't remember a thing about yourself?" he asked, his voice gentle yet firm. Beside him, Larra sighed heavily.

"Well, yes," she said, "but we all told her not to . . . Why did she?"

Chevron looked up, salty streaks meandering down his face. He took a shuddering breath, still cradling Rogue in his arms.

"She . . . she was getting depressed, I think," he said slowly, painfully, "before she bolted, and then she locked herself in here . . ."

Anguish contorted his face into a grimace of miserable depression as he gently rocked back and forth on his knees, Rogue clutched tightly in his protective embrace. With one gloved hand, he pressed her head to his chestplate, and it seemed as if he began humming a melody that they all knew well: "_Vode An_." But his voice was trembling, breaking, so he didn't vocalize the lyrics. He almost whispered them, his mouth barely forming the words. The poor lad clung to Rogue, keeping her pressed securely into himself and seeming as if she was one large doll which he blatantly refused to relinquish to anyone's care but his own. Larra's heart twisted with compassion as she, being attuned to the emotions of those around her, felt Chevron's pain as clearly as if it were her own. She turned a mournful eye to Boss, who sighed as he gently gripped Chevron's shoulders.

"C'mon, _vod_," he said soothingly. "She'll be all right. She just needs rest, is all."

"Sure," Scorch added. "Like we'd lose her. Tough cookie, her."

"No . . ." Chevron moaned pitifully, shaking his head with fierce opposition. "No, I won't leave her! I _can't_!"

He only held Rogue tighter—if that was even possible. His face disappeared into the dark brown locks of her hair as his shoulders began quivering with stifled sobs of despair. Larra tried to take his hand to drag him to his feet while Boss tried to ease Rogue out of his grasp, but Chevron dug his heels in and stubbornly kept himself planted on the cargo hold floor. Both arms were entwined tightly around Rogue; it seemed that he was so determined to stay with her that should anyone attempt to take her from him, they would have to kill him first.

"Maybe we should just let him stay," Fixer suggested quietly, gazing concernedly at his _vod_.

"He sure is dedicated," Sev muttered, feigning indifference to the scene before him despite the twinge of compassion inside him. Scorch looked at him, eyes sympathizing. When he spoke, it was in a tone much quieter than the others had ever heard.

"He loves her."

Chevron just barely nodded, his hands so tightly clasping Rogue's limp form that it seemed that if his gauntlets were removed, his knuckles would be deathly white. Larra sighed and gently patted her brother's shoulder.

"We'll leave you alone, Chev," she said quietly. "C'mon, let him stay with her."

She silently ushered the others out, and the sound of their footsteps on the metal floor panels faded as they went further into the little freighter. Chevron was left completely alone, staring down at Rogue in a haze of relative disbelief. He was practically oblivious to the low, accelerating whir of the freighter's engines a half hour or so later; the little bit he _did_ hear told him that Larra had decided to just go ahead and leave Ord Mantell now that they had no real reason to stay. As tears welled in his eyes again, he pulled off one of his gauntlets and gently stroked Rogue's face. Absently, he realized it had been so long since he'd felt her skin with his own. He did possess a limited sense of touch through his armor's gloves, but without them, feeling the soft firmness of her face was just so much better. After a moment, he dared to speak.

"Is this how you felt when I died?" he asked, his voice a barely audible whisper in the silence of the cargo hold. "Rogue . . . please . . . I can't live like this . . ."

She was his one weakness, and he knew it. He just could not help himself as he began to weep bitterly over her motionless, faintly breathing body. Squeezing his eyes shut against his internal pain, Chevron pressed his forehead to Rogue's and silently begged her to _please_ wake up.


	19. Inside My Head

_Folks, I'm so sorry it's two short chapters in a row. I promise the next one will be longer because I know how addicted you all are. XD_

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Eighteen – Inside My Head**

_Is this what it feels like to be dead?_

Wherever I was, it was dark. There was no light that I could see, save an almost golden-yellow pinpoint far in the darkest depths. I wasn't sure if I was dead or not; I'd thought that being dead would leave me in a happy place filled with light and laughter and, more than likely, people who cared about me. Surely I had to have _some_ family that would be there . . . But since I was alone in total darkness, I figured I wasn't really dead.

_Then if I'm not there . . . where am I?_

I didn't know where I was, but it was comfortable, for the most part. I felt like I was floating in mid-air, totally carefree and able to just relax. Because of that sensation of happy weightlessness, I got the impression that I was unconscious. But that didn't last too long. One minute, it was blissfully peaceful, pain-free darkness, and the next . . . It was such a whirl of frenzied motion—images, light, sound . . . I wanted to scream with sudden fright but found that I had no voice in my unconsciousness. It was so terrifying, all those sights and sounds. But then I realized that some of them were more familiar than they should have been. The three little flashes I'd had before—the man in the blue tunic, the swirl of black, navy, and green, and Chevron leaning down close to me—were suddenly longer. There was more to them, oddly enough. I knew that if I'd been awake, I would have been completely breathless with surprise and wonder. Why? Well, for starters, the man's face gradually refocused. It wasn't just a blur of blue any longer; now he had a face . . . and a name, too. _Jang'buir_. My father—_ner buir_. It was so strange because all I wanted to do was go find him, embrace him, and tell him I'd forgotten but remembered. But then I realized that he was dead and had been for years. That left a burning stab of pain, but I smoothed it over with the cheerful realization that I remembered my father and several of the warmest, happiest memories that went along with him. I remembered that one time he had actually hugged me, and that a show of emotion like that was as rare as a dry day on Kamino. I didn't remember _everything_ about him, but I remembered enough to remind me that I had been loved even if he hadn't admitted it out loud. So I settled back in the swirling mass of colorful images to see if anything else would pop out. And something did.

The tri-color swirl was back and was far more vivid than it had ever been. Now I saw it was a cold, white barracks, and the colors belonged to Larra and me, respectively! I nearly squealed with glee to know that I had dragged out one of my earliest recollections of her. Had I been able, I would've laughed to myself to see myself getting beaten into the ground by Larra, who was completely in her element. We'd fought; I'd lost; I'd gotten a nice souvenir in the form of a scar on my chin. I remembered that whole fight now. Seeing that—the two of us going at it in one heck of a scrap—unlocked other tiny fragments of memories, but they were too fuzzy to really see. I didn't mind, though, if you can believe it. Somehow, I just _knew_ I'd eventually remember everything. What made me happy was that things which seemed like the main points in my life were clear. Of course, we mustn't forget that I now had a starting block for rebuilding my memories. I was so glad to see those little memories that I would've let out a holler if I'd been able.

And then there was the third flash. Chevron and I were in a dark hallway, chatting quietly. He slowly reached out and brushed his hand across my face, and I saw myself close my eyes at his touch. Then he leaned down and softly kissed me, and I was so ecstatic to finally remember how special he had always been to me. The little memory went on: the kiss deepened, I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him nearer . . . Oh, _Force_. In that instant, I remembered the raging fire that had been inside us. I remembered that our hearts had always been bound by the words "_Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum_" and that we had sworn to love each other as long as time went on. The one thing that struck guilt into me was that, in my amnesia-induced misery, I had almost completely pushed him away. I had broken down my one pillar of strength, and I just wanted to wake up so I could apologize, tell him how much he meant to me, and perhaps be treated to one of those kisses which I remembered had always stuck my feet to the floor. I remembered that we'd never gone any further than kissing; we'd always had to ignore the flaming passions. But now . . . now, if Chev would forgive me for shunning him these past few days, we could be married and finally allow ourselves to give in to it. (Would you look at that? I finally called him by his nickname again. Ooh, that felt good.)

But . . . as much as I wanted to wake up, get out of all that darkness, and just make things right again, I didn't have any control over it. I was a prisoner to whatever damage I'd inflicted by forcing myself to remember. I thought I'd keep seeing pieces of my past through my mind's eye, but I saw not a thing. Instead, it went completely dark again. All the pieces were still there, waiting to be mended. The three whole memories I had were thoroughly knitted together, and I was anxious for the day when I would be allowed to add to those three. But I couldn't stop myself. My body was still unconscious, and now my mind quickly followed suit. For a long time, I wondered whether I was dead or dying . . . I was afraid as the darkness took me. I just wanted to wake up, just wanted to see my Chev again. I was scared. I wanted my normalcy back, but all I got was a black expanse of nothingness that left me completely alone, save my three whole memories and a heap of fragmented ones.


	20. The Return of, Well, Me!

_A/N: Yay for a chapter that's longer by a thousand measly words! XD But I just wanted to let y'all know that there will be one more after this... Not only do I want to make it an even twenty, but I've got one more thing I want to say in it! _

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen – The Return of, Well, Me!**

I have no idea how long it was. It may have been only a few minutes, but then again, it could've been hours or even days (I'll bet it was a few hours, though). All I know was that after an excruciatingly long period of time, it felt as if my mind had loosed the shackles that were pinning me down. My mind finally allowed me my freedom, and I slid out from the mess of darkness and tattered memories, clinging desperately to the ones that were whole again. I expected to just wake up, but apparently, nothing ever goes that easily for me. Instead, it was like being shoved into a swirling vortex of raging wind. I was blown and whipped around in what was the strangest phenomenon for Force knows how long before I just came to a grinding halt. My eyelids were still heavy, but I was essentially awake. The first thing I noticed was that I could hear the low rumble of a ship's engines; somehow, we were in space, and that rumble could only have been the hyperdrive. Then I realized there were arms firmly gripping me, holding me so tightly I thought my ribs would give way under the pressure. For a moment, I was confused; I didn't know who should be holding me like that. But then I remembered: Chevron. I remembered that he'd been beside me when I'd first lost consciousness. Had he honestly been holding me all that time? That was almost unfathomable for me . . . until I remembered how much he'd loved me. He still had to if he was willing to hold me for hours on end. Cautiously, I cracked one eye open and looked up into his face. He was looking straight ahead toward the cargo hold window, eyes closed. There were dry streaks of salt on his face; he'd been crying. My heart ached for him, and I just wanted to hug him. He was so tightly holding me, mouth moving as if singing or speaking, but no words were coming out—only an occasional puff of air which indicated a hard consonant. He looked simply terrible sitting there; anguish was scrawled across his face in the form of deeply furrowed brows. He was pale, he looked exhausted, and his face from his jaw to the lower half of his cheek was still unshaven. Poor baby; I slowly opened my other eye, being careful not to move. I guess I wanted to surprise him.

But it was the strangest thing; there I was, looking right at him, but I was still startled to see him there. Maybe it was because the moment I'd looked at him, everything that had ever been between us came flooding back. Suddenly, I didn't have just the one memory of that hallway kiss. I had a dozen more so similar to it. In the back of my battered mind, I heard every time he'd said he loved me and saw every time his lips touched mine or his hand clasped mine. I knew his full name without having to be reminded a few times; I remembered that he'd been dead and that I'd been miserable to the point of suicide over it; I remembered that he had been brought back to me in a turn of events which the Empire had started out of greed but that had become good for him and me. I inhaled so shallowly, still trying not to clue him in, that it came out as one faint, shuddering breath. I just stared at him for several minutes, my heart squeezing as I realized how completely worried he looked. He was so anxious for me that he'd become almost an expressionless, lethargic stone. He looked so terribly frightened that it was as if . . . as if he thought he was losing me. Paranoia suddenly kicked in, and I inadvertently flinched as I wondered if I'd awakened only to die.

"Chev . . . ?" I began, my voice hoarse from non-use. I noticed how he jumped at the sound of his name. I abruptly became terrified of losing the few memories I had regained and of losing him. But, for the most part, I was afraid of losing _myself_. Terror seized me, and I let out a choking sob as Chev looked down at me in shock. "C—Chev! Oh, Chev, _please_ don't leave me!"

That last bit came out as one long word as I reached up and threw my arms around his neck, whimpering pitifully. He shakily inhaled, clutching me close. I could feel him breathe a heavy sigh of relief as he pressed me close to him.

"Rogue . . ." he whispered. "You . . . you remember! Force . . . _you remember!_"

With that, he let out a sob of joyful relief as he hugged me so tightly I thought my bones would break. But I didn't mind all _that_ much because I was hugging him just as tightly. I could tell he was glad to have me back; _I_ was glad to have me back! At that moment, it didn't care that I still suffered from blank spots. All that mattered was that I knew who I was and that my love for Chev had come back in full force. I clung to his neck as if letting go would mean I'd lose everything again. Tears were streaming down my face; I couldn't help but cry as hard as I did. Burying my face in his shoulder, I choked on my tears as I cried his name over and over until I was sputtering.

"Don't let me go, okay?" I begged him. "I've been so far away . . . I . . . Oh, just hold me!"

I wanted to tell him how sorry I was, but I couldn't formulate the words. All I could do was squeeze him as tightly as he was squeezing me, shuddering with fright at losing everything I had all over again. I knew he could feel me trembling in his arms, because he took a few short breaths before wrapping his arms almost completely around me. Gently, he began to rock me, pressing my head to his shoulder. Frankly, I was just content to stay like that. I didn't want to leave the strength and love in his embrace. Closing my eyes, I nestled into his shoulder, and he sighed before leaning down and kissing my neck.

"I won't leave, _Ro'ika_," he breathed. "Never again . . . _ner cyar'ika_ . . . _Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum_ . . ."

"I'm not going anywhere either," I told him, sounding timid. "Not ever. I think . . . I think I was too close to going for _good_."

I shivered at the thought, but Chev just whispered for me to take it easy. He held me for a few minutes, chin nestled in my shoulder, before there was a rumble of footsteps in the hall outside. Suddenly, there was a deep voice that I recognized, and my heart beat faster.

"What the fierfek is going on?!"

Slowly, I turned, my arms still wrapped around Chev's neck. My eyes went wide when I saw who was standing there, and I beamed, for I recognized him. Behind him were three others, and I felt joy rise in my heart. Chev was still holding me, but I reached out toward the others.

"Sev . . ." I whispered, noticing how his brows shot skyward. "All the other Deltas, too . . . Scorch a—and Fixer . . . and Boss . . ."

I grinned at them, and the Deltas exchanged relieved looks before they all grinned at me. Scorch waved at me; he was as cheerful as I remembered him always being. Boss let out a heavy sigh of relief and smiled faintly at me.

"Boys," he said, "I think we may have a bit of good news!"

Then there were more footsteps in the corridor, and the next second, Larra stuck her head around the corner, one brow arched. She did _not_ look pleased, let me tell you. Or, well, she looked as if she'd clobber me if I was just faking it. But how could I fake knowing my family?!

"Don't tell me that the girl's awake," she muttered. "If she's going to get off her rocker again, she's in for it!"

Okay, so maybe she wasn't going to clobber me for faking it; she was planning to clobber me if I got incredibly depressed and tried to get myself drunk! Well, don't worry, _vod_; not happenin' (again) any time soon.

"No," I said softly. "No, Lar . . . I'm back."

Having made that declaration, I nestled my head into Chev's chest, and you know what? I could feel him smile. I reached up and ran my fingers through the hair at his neck. From the corner of my eye, I saw Larra stare at me before taking a step or two back. She leaned out into the hall and shouted down it.

"Oy, pilot-dude! I think we got someone who needs a jog in the head! She just called me by my name!"

The Delta boys laughed, and I smiled to myself, looking up at Chev. A few seconds later, Sevvie appeared at the cargo hold door, poking his head around the corner. As soon as he saw me tangled up in Chev's arms, his eyes began glittering wickedly.

"Hey, lookit!" he chuckled, snorting with laughter. "Rogue and Chev are at it again! Chev and Rogue, sittin' on an aiwha—"

He never got to finish, for Larra cuffed him quite hard. Sev let out a brief bark of laughter before Boss silenced him. I chuckled slightly.

"I don't mind," I said. "I _do_ recall the first time you made that comment, though, Sevvie . . . I didn't hear it, but Boss so kindly told me of it. Heh."

"So . . . you're back?" Scorch asked. "Like . . . head all fixed?"

"Well . . . there are . . . fuzzy spots," I admitted. "But I think knocking myself out actually helped, if you can believe it."

"I didn't get all of that," Sev muttered, "but sure."

Larra scoffed with faint disbelief before lightly smacking Boss upside the shoulder.

"If we'd known that before, we could've told ya to do that, Jarred!" she exclaimed.

"What, knock her out?" Boss asked, raising a brow.

"Well, _duh_," Sev replied. "We could've slugged her on the back of the head and knocked her cold for a week."

"And if you had," I warned, "I'd have sliced your Adam's apple julienne."

To my and Scorch's amusement, Sev gulped with fright and backed away, hands up in surrender. Larra sighed and shook her head.

"I _meant_ that if we'd known that knocking yourself out would bring it back, Jarred, we could've knocked _you_ out and seen if anything came back."

Sevvie chuckled, his tongue between his teeth. Just by looking at him, I could tell that _this_ was the Sevvie I'd known before. In fact, this was my family! I loved them all so much . . . Chev most of all. In the doorway, Boss sighed and shook his head at Larra's last comment.

"That's just fine," he mumbled sarcastically. "The back of _my_ head feels real good knowing that."

"Aww, cheer up," Scorch soothed, clapping him on the shoulder and swallowing a laugh. "You've gotten your memories back!"

"Besides, it's . . . dangerous to do it," I told him, sighing. "I felt like my head was exploding . . . I seriously thought I was dying." Realizing that doing that had caused pain to more than just me, I gazed up into Chev's big brown eyes and—as corny as this sounds—fell in love with him all over again. I brushed my hand across his jaw, cupping it in my hand. "Forgive me, _cyar'ika_. I didn't mean to hurt you, too . . ."

Chev just gulped and held me, his arms secure around me. I noticed that he seemed awfully protective and clingy, but considering what he'd been through, I didn't blame him. He was just like a regular, non-soldier young man in all this; he loved me and wanted to protect me, and I was so grateful for him. As far back as I could recall (which wasn't really that far, but that didn't matter), he'd always been there for me, and I'd always been there for him. I don't know if you believe in soul mates or not, but we were. I think Larra sensed it, too, for she herded the others away from the cargo hold as Chev looked down at me, brows furrowed and arms holding me.

"I . . . I think I understand now . . ." he said slowly, "how you felt after . . . after that first time . . ."

Without having to ask, I knew what he meant: Geo. He meant when he died. He meant that he finally understood the agony I had felt after losing him; nearly losing me had brought the same feeling to his heart. I didn't say a word and instead just took his face in my hands and kissed him, long and slow. His breath was warm and his mouth was soft on mine, and, frankly, I'd forgotten what kissing him had felt like. To put it poetically, it was like the sun coming up on a new dawn in my life. I guess we stayed locked in that one kiss for a couple minutes, because Sevvie soon dropped by to inform us that we'd be arriving at Mandalore in a few hours. Chev just waved him off and wrapped his arms tighter around me after tilting my chin up toward him a little more. We could hear Sevvie ambling down the hall and singing "Chev and Rogue, sittin' on an aiwha, k-i-s-s-i-n-g" at the top of his lungs. But you know what? Neither of us cared. We knew we'd only be single for a few more hours; it was just a given that we would be married as soon as the ship's struts sank into the familiar dirt of _Manda'yaim_. We'd been planning it since the year I turned eighteen, but as you can tell, we never had an opportunity until now. It was that knowledge that we'd have each other for the rest of our lives that made us abruptly break apart. We knew we'd have plenty of time for that later. And Chev didn't have to propose to me, since it was basically a consensus, but he did anyway. He had no ring for me, and he didn't go on one knee, but he gazed steadily at me and asked me—in Mando'a—if I would do him the honor of being his wife. And you know what I said? I cried, "Hell, yes!" before throwing my arms around him and kissing him again.

Call it cliché that we should both be so happy only such a short time after I awoke, but it was true. It was true because he and I had been suffering long enough; the way I saw it, it was high time for a good break for us. Now, all we had to do was wait until we hit _Manda'yaim_ and track down the current Mandalore to officiate our quickly approaching marriage. For most of the rest of the trip, Chev, the Deltas, Larra, Sevvie, and I all talked about old times as I worked—pain-free this time!—at getting my memories to resurface. But the rest of the time, Chev just held my hand, and neither one of us could stop smiling.


	21. Matrimony

_Here's the last chapter, folks. Hope you've enjoyed it. Just beware that when you see ANOTHER sequel pop up... Jax made me do it. XD No, I'm kidding. I was going to anyway! -T92_

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**Chapter Twenty – Matrimony **

Completely exhausted from everything that had happened, I curled up in a spare bunk and slept through the last leg of the flight home, waking up only when Chev came and gently shook me awake. His face was practically glowing with excitement, and just by looking at him, I knew we were home. Scrambling up to the cockpit, I was treated to the sight of the (well, _my_) little freighter breaking _Manda'yaim_'s atmo. I was so ecstatic to see my home again that I quickly scribbled out some instructions on a scrap of paper and passed it to Sevvie. He took one look at it before turning, looking at me, and grinning mischievously. I just grinned back, eyes sparkling, as we streaked through the atmosphere so fast that everyone else just about fell over. Seeing a series of buttons on the console that operated exterior cameras, I reached for the one labeled "rear." The image that flashed up on the nearby screen was the back of the ship near the engines. Flames streaked off the metal as we broke atmo, making us look almost like a comet. Sevvie let out a holler as we dove for the planet's surface, and he waited until we were skimming the ground at ten, maybe fifteen feet, before pulling up. He was having the time of his life, and so was I, for that matter! Larra swore at him for cutting it so close to the ground, but he just flashed her a wicked grin. Turning to look at Chev, I found that he looked completely exhilarated. Well, why shouldn't he? This was my homecoming surprise for all of us.

We cruised across the wide open plains, going almost full throttle, before Sevvie pulled up and followed the next instruction on my list. He headed for the old Fett homestead—the place where the one big adventure called "my life as a _Mando'ad_" had begun so many years before. When we got there, we circled around a couple times, and I saw that the house was actually different. It was a bit larger, for starters; there was what looked to be a two-room wing added on to the back. I nearly asked what was going on when Larra reached over and tapped my shoulder to get my attention. I turned and found a huge smile across her face.

"That's for you," she said. "We've been living here for a while, believe it or not. We thought someday you'd need a place to settle down, so we built the extension."

"And now I guess that can be for you and Chev!" Scorch added with a grin.

Guess who was surprised then? I was thinking I'd treat them to a bit of stunt flying, and here they were treating me to a house. I looked over at Chev; his eyes were simply scintillating with glee. And me? Well, I was so surprised and so happy that I let out a squeal and tackled Larra in a huge hug. Let me tell you something right now: it isn't easy to take down an ex-ARC with a hug, but I managed. I think the joy of the moment was so contagious that she just let me. She and I went down laughing, and a few seconds later, I clambered off, beaming. Sevvie turned and smirked mischievously before asking who wanted to go get married. I think you can guess the answer to that.

Having circled the house for a bit, we shot off toward Keldabe to find the current _Mand'alor_. I wasn't sure if there'd even be one, but Larra assured me there was. That brought me a good deal of comfort, for it meant that, for the most part, my home, family, and culture were all still in tact. I was so glad to know that my people still lived that I almost let out a whoop of _"Oya manda!"_ but thought better of it. I'd save that for later, perhaps; maybe I could use it during a family reunion. We'd go find Kal and all his Null ARCs, maybe track down the commando squad that had been on their way to spring me and Chev from, eh, _that place_ the first time . . . Sprinkle in a little _Dha Werda Verda_ to taste, stir well, and enjoy! My only regrets were that my father was dead and my brother hated my guts. But other than that, I was back, and boy, did it feel good!

When we hit Keldabe, Sevvie pulled a maneuver that I'd asked him to pull even though I knew we could probably get in trouble for it. He buzzed the city before pulling an inverted barrel roll, shooting off across the plains again, and doubling back for the landing. That one got a few excited hollers from the Delta boys, and Larra and I just grinned at each other. Chev clapped Sevvie on the backplate as we came to a graceful halt on the outskirts of Keldabe. As we all exited the ship, we found that we had all been _thiiiis_ close to getting in very big trouble for buzzing the city, but since we were Mando, it was brushed off once and only once. Sevvie got a nice, firm warning that promised punishment if he did that again. He just smiled innocently.

After we all calmed down, we asked to see _Mand'alor_. The question "Why?" eventually came up, and Chev and I got a couple congratulatory nods when we made it known that we wanted to have a marriage that had been properly officiated by the leader of the _Mando'ade_. Needless to say, that went over well, and no, that wasn't sarcasm. It really did go over well. Even though Chev and I were practically brand-new to the Mando clans, they accepted us with open arms. I've always liked to think that it was because they could tell Chev was the epitome of a Mandalorian man just by looking at him, and I will tell you now that that is _not_ something that comes down through the gene pool. That was something hammered into him by the one and only Kal Skirata, known lovingly as _Kal'buir_ to us all. But honor, the _Resol'Nare_, and all such Mando principles aside, _Mand'alor_—Fenn Shysa for those of you interested—agreed to officiate our marriage. Now, before I say any more, you have to understand something about Mandalorian weddings. They aren't high-class functions where everybody dresses up, the bride wears a gorgeous white gown, and she and the groom exchange overly romantic vows. It's actually more of a legal commitment that, much like the adoption process, consists of a statement of purpose. _Mando'ade_ emphasize fidelity _very_ strongly, too; as if you didn't notice, Chev was extremely good at that. Anyway, after _Mand'alor_ agreed to officiate the union, Larra hauled me off as Sevvie and the Deltas hauled Chev off. I guess they figured that any bride- or groom-to-be deserved a little "gussyin' up" before the big occasion. See, that's another thing about Mando marriages: they're expected to last for life. Divorce is rather rare except in dire circumstances like abandonment, but I didn't need to worry about that. Chev would _never_ abandon me, nor I him.

_Anyway_, Larra helped me patch up my armor since that was what I'd be married in. The whole time, I was so excited I could barely breathe. I'd been waiting for this day since I was seventeen, after all! I helped her patch all the holes and repaint the more faded silver streaks, but she had to do most of the work because my hands were trembling so badly. (Later, I learned that it'd been the same with Chev. He'd been unable to sit still, so the Delta gang had to almost tie him down!) But after an hour or two, I was in pretty good shape. My armor looked brand-new, and Larra had braided a short braid into either side of my short brown hair so that they each dangled down in front of my ear. Somehow, she managed to come up with a few sprigs of flowers, and she tucked them into my hair after telling me I ought to at least look a _little_ bit like a blushing bride. I still don't know what she was complaining about; I had the blushing part down pat! It was the bride part I was a little unsure on . . . but I figured I'd learn that quickly enough.

A little while later, Larra and I met up with the boys at _Mand'alor_'s quarters. I was happy as could be except for the fact that I wished more than anything that _Jang'buir_ were there . . . or Kal . . . or better yet—BOTH! That would have just made everything complete. I mean, the sun was shining, the sky was clear and blue, birds were singing, a gentle breeze was blowing . . . It was the perfect day, but it would've been so much better had the rest of my family been there. For a moment, I even found myself wishing I could make up with The Rodent . . . Ah, Boba. I'm not so angry at you anymore. Maybe you'll read this someday and know that your _ori'vod_ forgave you.

The wedding was simple, but the whole time, Chev and I absolutely could not take our eyes off one another. His hand clasped mine, our fingers interlocked. He looked quite spiffy in his cleaned-up armor; the chevrons down the front of his chestplate had been repainted, and I noticed that he had cleaned up the charred hole over his heart ever so faintly. I guessed that he didn't want to make it totally inconspicuous so no one would ever forget what it represented. The white plates of his armor gleamed in the afternoon sun, and when he smiled at me, his eyes sparkled just as they always had before. I realized, almost giddily, that I was about to become the luckiest girl in the galaxy; I would get to wake up to that smile every morning until the day I died. At that thought, I couldn't help but grin at him as we spoke the words that would bind us forever because, you know, marriage and family is very important to _Mando'ade_. As Larra, Sevvie, and the Deltas looked on in absolute joy, Chev and I spoke these vows:

"_Mhi solus tome_

_Mhi solus dar'tome_

_Mhi me'dinui an_

_Mhi ba'juri verde."_

In Basic, that translates to "We are one when together; we are one when parted; we share all; we will raise warriors." That seemed to sum it up pretty well for us, I thought. It seemed to me that we'd already been keeping the first two lines even _before_ marriage. But that was all that was said. It was a simple pledge, no fancy speeches, no frills. That was all to the wedding: a simple statement of commitment. I think everyone else had been waiting almost impatiently for us to say those vows, because as soon as _Mand'alor_ declared our marriage official, wished us well, and bid us good day, we were attacked from every direction with ecstatic, congratulatory whoops and tight hugs. I can't say that I've ever really seen two grown men hug, but Sevvie dragged Chev away from me and embraced him so tightly that all I could do was grin. Usually, a clap on the backplate was the only show of brotherly affection; this was so tight a hug that it seemed to me Chev was having a faint bit of trouble breathing properly. But he was smiling, Sevvie was laughing, and I felt tears come to my eyes because I knew that they were brothers who had been separated much too long. Larra hugged me, expressing her joy that now we were truly sisters. That in itself was a little bit hard for me to fully comprehend because, after all, we'd met under rather explosive terms.

Looking around at my extended family, I realized that I couldn't remember the last time any of them had looked so happy. Boss was smiling more broadly than I'd ever seen before. Everyone else was grinning, and eventually, Sev let out a yell of "Chev, aren't you gonna kiss your bride?" I glanced hopefully at Chev, but he just smiled at me and raised both eyebrows in a mischievous way that said, "Boy, am I _ever_." Ohh, I knew what that meant, and I realized I'd have a hard time waiting until that night. But Scorch joined Sev, and the two of them protested until Sevvie grabbed Chev by the wrist and dragged him back over to me.

"You get the feeling we're being pushed around?" Chev whispered to me, and I giggled, nodding a bit.

"If they're gonna be pushy like this," I replied slowly, totally flirting with him, "then I don't mind one bit."

Chev took the hint. He put his hands on my upper arms and leaned in, kissing me as gently and quietly has he had so many years before in that darkened Kaminoan hallway. But while it may have been gentle, there was still just a hint of what I'd be treated to that night in it. Needless to say, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him right back, but before long, the others were pulling us apart, telling us to "save it."

_I've _been _saving_, I thought, _and it's time to quit savin' and start spendin'! You just leave Chev and me alone for a few hours!_

Well, that secret wish didn't go over so well. Apparently, it only seemed fitting to treat the newlyweds to dinner, so Chev and I agreed to it despite the fact that we both wanted some time together now that we were married. But on the way to dinner, Larra took me off to do a little shopping in one of the downtown shops. (See, you have to know that Keldabe is a bustling metropolis!) I thought this was just some sort of torture, but instead she, being the sister figure she is to me, helped me pick out some new civilian clothes and a lacy nightgown that I had to admit was beautiful. But I _did_ ask why I was getting such a frilly thing, and when I did, Larra just smiled at me and told me Chev would like it. My mouth just formed the word "Oh" as I understood. Putting it simply, it meant I'd have to change as soon as we got home.

After doing that bit of shopping, we _finally_ went to dinner, where I learned that Sevvie and the Deltas had hauled Chev off to buy some "regular" clothes for him, as well. Well, that was nice. I didn't know why we'd need them; after all, we'd probably just wear our armor day in and day out. Then again, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have plain clothes on hand when armor just gets boring. _Anyway_, Chev and I were treated to an extremely nice dinner, complete with _tihaar_ (one glass only, for it's very strong!) and a very special wedding cake: a big, thick slab of _uj'alayi_—uj cake! I'm certain most Mando weddings aren't like that, but I think our family made ours special because Chev and I had been through so much; one of those "it's only right" moments, I guess. Yet during the entire thing, Chev couldn't keep his eyes off me. I didn't blame him; I couldn't keep mine off him, either. I suppose that's only natural for newlyweds. But I also noticed that he would fidget from time to time, and judging by the pointed looks he occasionally shot me, he was anxious—yep, like that. (I _am_ trying to spare too many details to prevent this from being dubbed "racy," after all!) But like the angel he is, he just kept quiet and stayed genial throughout dinner, patiently waiting.

Finally, just after dark, we all left dinner, and I started wondering how the evening would progress. I figured it'd be a little, well, _awkward_ if all of us were in the same house on my and Chev's wedding night. Thankfully, that privacy issue had been thought of. Larra handed us the keys to a landspeeder and informed us that she and the others would be staying the night in a local inn. I think Chev almost hugged her out of sheer glee, but he magically restrained himself. He just grinned at her, and _I_ hugged her—_and_ the Delta boys _and_ Sevvie. Then we jumped into the waiting speeder and sped off across the plains toward the Fett homestead.

Seeing the ol' place again brought back a dozen memories, and, knowing me, that was definitely a good thing. I remembered that there had been a plaque on the wall with a popular Mando saying, so while Chev fetched our new clothes out of the speeder, I darted inside. Sure enough, there it was, right over the mantle where it'd always been: _Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur. _Chev came in behind me, I grinned at him, and as he trooped off to investigate our wing, I stuck around to see the rest of the house even though I probably should've gone with him. It hadn't changed much, but it was definitely evident that a bunch of ex-commandos and two ex-ARCs lived there. Still, Larra kept a neat house; there was nothing out of place that I could see. The sparse furniture had been rearranged a bit, but that was fine. I noticed that Chev's old ARC helmet—the one I'd given Larra just before her court martial so long ago—was resting on the mantle right beneath the plaque. Seeing that made me smile, and I just stood there in the main living room, looking around, for several minutes before Chev came up behind me. He wrapped his hands around my waist and kissed the back of my neck, and I closed my eyes, knowing what that was a hint for. A shiver ran down my spine at his touch as I realized just how much I'd wanted this. Finally, after all my waiting . . . I sighed, relishing his closeness.

"The bedroom's beautiful," he murmured, leaning around and nuzzling my shoulder. I almost giggled like a schoolgirl.

"I'll bet," I replied, then turned to look at him. "I bought a lacy little nightgown today because Larra said you'd like it if I wore it."

Chev tilted his head, stroking his chin a moment as if in thought. Then he grinned mischievously at me.

"I don't think it'll be necessary."

I was practically breathless as he pulled me in and kissed me harder than he ever had before. I hadn't thought he held such . . . power. The strength in his kiss . . . _Force!_ Ever heard the phrase "putty in your hands"? Well, that was me. When he kissed me like that, my feet stuck right to the floor and I realized I was having trouble breathing. I didn't want that moment to end, since I was practically limp in his grasp, but it eventually did . . . or so I thought. Chev took me by the hand and led me off, shutting the door to our bedroom behind us; I guess he could wait no longer, either.

I'll spare you all the details, since you'd probably consider them too racy, after all. But I will say this: if you are ever so blessed as so have the love like the kind between Chev and me, then I hope that on _your_ wedding night, you are fortunate enough to experience the bliss we did. By the time we were both too exhausted to even move, it was nearly midnight.Eventually, Chev just tumbled sideways, breathing hard and even laughing. I rolled over onto my side, grinning at him and trying to slow my own heavy breathing. Sliding closer, I propped my head up in my palm, resting on my elbow and just watching him. I couldn't believe we'd actually made it to our wedding night; for the longest time, I'd doubted the possibility of that. Chev gazed at me for the longest time, still chuckling off and on. I finally gave in and asked why he was laughing and he told me that he was just happy. I nodded, thinking back to what we'd just shared. I was happier than I'd probably ever been in my life, so I told him that. He replied by pulling me into his arms and gently kissing me, first on the forehead, then on the lips. I reached up and brushed my hand through his slightly sweat-dampened hair, gazing into his eyes a moment. He just smiled at me, and I noticed that he wasn't breathing as hard anymore. Not only that, but he also looked a bit drowsy. So, taking that hint, I snuggled down close to his side, wrapping my arms around him and resting my head on his chest. I sincerely felt that I was the luckiest girl in the universe to be able to wake up each day with a man like him at my side, and I knew he felt the same.

As we lay there, dozing off, he lightly kissed the top of my head before trailing his first two fingers up and down my side and the part of my hip that wasn't covered by the sheet, tracing that slight curvature. I think he'd wanted to be able to be that close to me for a long time, so I just lay quietly there until he wrapped his arm around my waist, keeping me close by. He whispered "I love you" to me, and the next thing I heard was the soft, even breathing that indicated sleep. I lay awake a while longer, gazing up at the ceiling and thinking. It was a bit hard to believe that after all the horrible things that had happened to us, we were still blessed with an even break. Even after all the storms in our lives, we still managed to keep it together. It seemed to me then that it wasn't really worthwhile to remember the bad things, but I figured that without those bad things, we wouldn't be where we were. I recalled a wish I'd had several years before that I hadn't taken that bounty before Geonosis. I remembered how I'd wished I'd just gone straight to Geo and joined the fight. I remembered how I'd told myself that if I'd done that, Chev would've survived. But as I lay there, curled at his side and listening to him breathe, I realized we would've had to fight the chains of the growth acceleration. He never would've had the chance to be totally normal. I couldn't help but wonder if we'd be all right from then on out, but knowing my track record, something awful was bound to happen eventually. I just prayed that it wouldn't happen _too_ soon after our marriage . . . Five years would've be a decent waiting period for trouble, but ten would be even better. But for the time being, I cheered myself by reminding myself that we had Larra, Sevvie, and the Deltas, and that they were our family. I reminded myself that we were all together again, just like old times except—dare I say it?—better. And so, happy that my life was working out pretty well for once, I nestled into Chev and draped my arm across his waist as my eyelids grew heavy and I dozed peacefully off to dream of the happy days I hoped were in our future.

Because, I mean, at least we _had_ a future, right? Right. And knowing that felt amazing.


End file.
